


Erosion

by kalisgirl



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Codependency, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post - Deathly Hallows, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-08-24
Packaged: 2017-11-12 04:27:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 30,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/486686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalisgirl/pseuds/kalisgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To be needed is a powerful feeling.<br/>Cormac has lost so much to this damn war, but if he can save Hermione, maybe he can salvage something from the wreckage.<br/>Hermione has lost so much because of the damn war, but if she can save Cormac, maybe she will finally be free of it all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this story came to me when I stumbled across the HP PrisonerFest - it's not a light, fluffy romance. It deals with power imbalances, co-dependence, and emotional trauma. Please don't read it if that's going to trigger anything for you.
> 
> This story was beta'd by the kind and generous alinaandalion. The lovely cover art work was created by Susanmarier and can be found [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/492850).
> 
> Disclaimer: I lay no claim on the world of Harry Potter or its characters. They are the property of JKR and WB. I just like putting them in awkward situations.

  


**Erosion** : being worn away, broken down, or gradually destroyed

**_Present Day_ **

The bed was lumpy. It was the first thing that Cormac noticed. At first he assumed he was lying on a forest floor, rocks and branches pushing against his back. But when he blinked open his eyes, he saw plaster walls instead of trees, a white-washed ceiling instead of the sky. There was an oil lamp on the table beside his bed that cast flickering shadows through the room. He was aware of thinking that someone needed to trim the wick as his eyelids slid down and he drifted back into blackness.

* * *

The next time he opened his eyes, the oil lamp was burning brightly. The room was bright enough that Cormac had to squint. He stared at the blank white wall for few minutes, waiting for his eyes to adjust. He could feel a headache throbbing in his temples. The light wasn't making it any better, but he knew that he had to figure out where he was. He didn't recognize the room and in these times that was not a good sign.

He turned his head very slowly, wincing as the movement put pressure on some kind of wound on his left ear. The pain made his hand instinctively move towards the injury and he gasped. The hurt in his ear was nothing compared to the eye-watering agony in his shoulder. It felt like the bones of his upper arm and shoulder were edged with glass, glass that was now grinding into his flesh.

Cormac squeezed his eyes shut and breathed through his nose until the pain subsided. When he finally felt ready, he re-opened his eyes. The room came into focus through a haze of tears. He could see the oil lamp on the table and a second lamp on a low stool on the far side of the room. They were the only sources of light in the room, but he could see a window in the wall at the foot of the bed. It was high, right up against the ceiling, and small. The glass was milky and there were closely-spaced bars covering it.

The window confirmed his worst suspicions. He was in a cell. It explained why there were no decorations on the stark white walls or rugs on the dark wood floor. It meant that the door just past the bedside table was locked. It meant that the injuries that were making themselves known were probably from an attack, not an accident. It meant that his wand, which wasn't on the bedside table, was not in the room - if it was in one piece at all.

But most importantly, it meant that all the running and hiding he had done, all of his work for the resistance, everything he had done to try to protect his family, it was all for nothing. Instead of rescuing Death Eater prisoners, he had become one.

* * *

**_June 1996_ **

"Don't you look handsome!" Mary McLaggen's voice rose above the hubbub of the Great Hall. Cormac crossed to the Gryffindor table and found his parents beaming up at him. His mother's hands immediately went to his collar, adjusting his lapels and drape of his fur edged hood. He caught his father's eyes over her graying curls.

"Stop fussing over him, Mary," Iain McLaggen said fondly, putting his hand on his wife's shoulder. "He's a grown man, he can take care of his own appearance."

"He's my baby," she scolded. "I will fuss over him until his hair is as gray as yours."

Cormac ducked his head, hoping no one could hear their ridiculous chatter. It was better than usual, but they were still embarrassing.

"I am so proud of you, son," his mother said, giving his robes one last pat. "Five NEWTS. That is just wonderful, especially with everything that has happened this year."

"Thanks, mum," Cormac helped her to sit on the old wooden bench and sat down beside her. "It's a pretty good showing, I suppose."

"Pretty good? I say it's excellent!" His mum's smile was so bright Cormac had to look away.

"I suppose," he said.

"It's very good, son," his dad said, sitting on his mum's other side. "You'll be able to take your pick of jobs now."

Cormac sighed. He knew what his dad said was true. He'd already had owls from the Department of Magical Games and Sport but he hadn't written back yet. What he'd wanted to do was play Quidditch, not do some Ministry job where he would only see Quaffles through Omnioculars. But with what had happened to him on the Gryffindor team this year, there was not much chance of that.

He had had to keep himself apart from the Quidditch team after the disastrous game where he'd hit Potter and they had lost so badly. There had been a lot of resentment over his playing style. Some people weren't able to take good advice when they heard it, and Potter had made it very clear that he didn't want Cormac around anymore.

"Where do you think you'll go, Cormac?" Iain McLaggen reached across his wife and tapped Cormac's knee, pulling him out of his thoughts.

"You'll come home first, if only for a little while?" his mother asked. "I need to have _some_ time to spoil my boy before you go off and start your new life."

"Of course, Ma."

"That's wonderful, dearie," she said. She reached up to wrap her arm around his shoulders and pulled him close. He leaned in to her embrace, trying to mirror her smile.

He was having a hard time sharing her happiness. Headmaster Dumbledore's funeral had been two days ago and the school had been a dismal place ever since. The younger students had gone home, leaving the seventh years to their packing and preparations. Cormac had waited impatiently for his turn to escape. He wanted to get away from this place he had thought was safe once, even if it meant going out into a world that was looking more dangerous by the day.

An hour ago, Cormac had knelt at the front of the Great Hall so that Professor Flitwick could charm a scarlet-lined hood to drape over his head. He had thought that the leaving ceremony would break the miserable mood that hung over the school like spring fog. But instead, every moment seemed to scream ‘'You're not safe here! We killed him here!' and Cormac found himself watching the clock, wishing it would go faster. Even now, the fifteen minutes until the carriages would arrive felt like too long to wait.

"Well, son, as soon as we get home, we'll owl your Uncle Tiberius. With his connections, you'll be in at the Ministry before you can say alohomora."

"Sounds good, dad."

"Or you could live with us for a while," his dad suggested quietly. "Stay in Elmeric's Corner and take some advanced training by correspondence."

"That sounds like a wonderful idea," his mum said, squeezing his shoulders. "Stay close to home. I'll feed you up. And you can visit your Aunt Susan in Glasgow. She hasn't seen you in years."

"I don't know about that, Mary. I don't think this is the time to be crossing into the Muggle world." Iain McLaggen's voice was just above a whisper.

"Nonsense! If I want to visit my sister, I'm going to visit my sister. No one has any right to stop me!"

Cormac grinned for the first time all day. His mum was kind of brilliant sometimes.

"Oh, you Gryffindor types. All fight and no sense," sighed his father.

"Just because you Ravenclaws would rather think and plan and think and plan until we're old and grey…"

"Mary-love, we _are_ old and grey." Cormac's dad laughed. Then his face settled into a more serious expression, "but Cormac isn't, and he has to consider his future. It's not the best time to be reminding people that you come from Muggles."

Cormac couldn't help looking around to see if anyone had heard his father's words. His mother didn't have the same good sense.

"I'm not ashamed of my background," she said, "and I'm not going to let them scare me into abandoning my family."

"Hush, Ma," Cormac said. "I don't think I'm going to have time visit Aunt Celia. I have an offer to start a job at the Ministry as soon as I want. I think I'll take it." _Why not?_ he thought. It wasn't like his Quidditch dreams were going to come true.

"Will you be in Edinburgh, son?"

"No, dad. At the London Ministry." At least the Ministry job would get him to London, where he could make contacts and improve his future. Even better, it would take him away from Scotland and his Muggle relatives.

"I'll owl your Uncle Tiberius, then. I'm sure he'll put you up while you find a flat."

"Thanks, dad." Cormac shrugged free of his mother's arm and stood. "Look, I've got to get my trunks. The carriages will be arriving soon."

* * *

**_Present Day_ **

The light was dim the next time Cormac opened his eyes. The lamp by his bed had been turned down, and the other lamp was gone. He stretched his legs experimentally and found he could move without much discomfort. The sling binding his left arm was strapped tight against his side, but the pain in his shoulder was much more dull. With a little effort, and a fair bit of swearing, he managed to scoot himself up the bed until he was leaning against the headboard.

He rested against the wall for long moments, panting from the effort it had taken to sit up. Looking to his left, he spotted a metal cup beside the lamp. The sight of it made him realize that his mouth felt like sandpaper. Thirst hit him like a cramp in his throat, and he forced himself to turn in the bed until he could reach the cup.

The water was incredible. Cormac tried not to drink too fast, afraid his stomach would react badly, but the water was sweet and tasted of herbs. Maybe he should have cared that he was being given drugged water while lying in a prison cell, but he was so thirsty. He emptied the cup far too quickly and sat for a few minutes wishing he'd learned more about wandless magic so he could conjure up more liquid.

Drinking the water might have filled one need, but it also sparked another. His bladder made itself known aggressively. He felt a moment of panic - was he going to have to pee in a corner? - and then he noticed a covered pail near the foot of the bed. The relief he felt didn't last long. The end of the bed could have been miles away, the way he felt.

Cormac leaned forward and pushed back the grey wool blankets. His shoulder ached and his breath caught as his ribcage pinched. He tried to move his legs, but realized that it would be easier if he picked up his thighs and shifted them by hand. After what felt like an hour, but was probably about ten minutes, he was seated at the side on the bed and pulling the bucket towards him. But down there on the floor, it was still too far away.

Cursing his captors, his weakness, and his own body, he took a deep breath and pushed. The floor rose up and hit him in the knees hard enough to make his eyes water. He tried to stop his body, but found his free hand slapping on the floor just in time to keep him from landing face first. Panting, he rose up onto his knees and pushed down the loose cotton trousers he wore.

After a very satisfying pee, he sealed the bucket lid back down and pushed it away. Before he could even start to haul himself back into the bed, a wave of dizziness had him back on his hand and knees. He barely had time to pull the blanket down over himself before he lost consciousness.

* * *

**_August 1996_ **

The broom on the workbench was glowing purple. Not a good sign, Cormac thought. It had definitely been enhanced, but he couldn't pin-point the spell. Which meant hours of painstaking work, teasing away the layers of charms on the bristles and wood until he found the illicit charm. It looked like he'd be ordering in lunch _and_ dinner today.

It was quiet down in the testing workshop. When he had first started at this job, he had hated being stuck down in a nowhere lab doing completely unimportant work. The Department of Magical Games and Sport had hired him to check brooms and other Quidditch equipment for tampering. His top-level NEWTs in Charms and Transfiguration got him the job, but his stubborn determination quickly made him one of the best testers in the department. His co-workers had even started to listen to his ideas about testing procedures.

But two weeks ago, the Minister of Magic had been killed and everything had been turned upside down. The Ministry had changed so fast that he hadn't known what to do. For the first time in his life, he hadn't been sure of where he stood. His Uncle Tiberius had left London right after Minister Scrimgeour's death and had suggested Cormac do the same. But Cormac wasn't the type to run away.

He had stayed in London, stayed in his job, and stayed quiet. Every morning he walked past Undesirable posters and patrols of enforcement wizards. He would nod hello to the security people and try hard not to look at the new statue in the main lobby. He would take the lift down to his workshop and lock himself in. And he would work. Cormac worked harder than he ever had before, put in longer hours, and told himself that he would find a way to make it alright in the end.

A chiming sound caused Cormac to look up from the broom. The entry door had a faint golden aura, indicating that someone had knocked. He frowned. No one came down to his workshop. His supervisor sent memos and his coworkers might seek him out at lunch, but no one just dropped by. Releasing the enchantments on the broom, he let it drop back into its crate. He locked the crate securely before making his way to the door.

He pulled the door open and stopped in surprise.

"Ma?"

His mother smiled up at him. "Cormac. I brought you lunch."

She held up a picnic basket. Cormac blinked.

"Are you going to invite me in? Or shall we eat in the corridor?"

"Oh, yeah," Cormac stepped back and waved his mum into the room. "Sorry, Ma. Just wasn't expecting to see you here."

It was more than that. The last time he'd talked to his parents in the floo, his dad had said they were thinking of going on a long visit to Muggle Glasgow. He didn't say it out loud, but Cormac knew that his dad was worried about his Muggle-born wife's safety.

"I know, love." His mum set the basket on his desk and waved her wand. Plates, bottles, and food began to arrange themselves on the desk. "I had to come in to town, so I thought I'd drop by and feed you. Good thing, too. You're looking peaky."

Cormac tried to smile, but it wasn't easy. He knew he looked like shite - he wasn't sleeping much, or paying attention to what he ate - but his mum also looked like she hadn't been sleeping or eating much. It had only been seven weeks since he left home, but she looked years older.

"What's going on, Ma?"

She stopped ladling out beef and lager stew and met his gaze.

"Can't hide anything from you, can I, love?" she said fondly, putting down the ladle and reaching for his hands. "I always wondered if you should have been in Ravenclaw like your dad."

"Ma…"

She squeezed his hands. "No, pet, not now. Why don't you sit down and tell me how you're liking this job? I want to hear all about it."

Cormac let her lead him to the desk and serve lunch. They talked about his father's new wireless set and the state of his mum's garden. He told her about his job and how, much to his surprise, he liked it.

"So you're happy here?" his mum asked.

"I suppose," he said, eventually. "I like staying at Uncle Tiberius' place. And I like this job, working with the brooms. Actually, I've been thinking that I might look for an apprenticeship with a broom designer. I have some ideas for better, tamper-proof charms that would also improve stability. My supervisor says they have promise."

"That's wonderful, Cormac." His mum reached across the table and squeezed his hand. "I'm really pleased for you."

She smiled, but her eyes were sad. Cormac couldn't continue pretending this was a normal lunch with his mum. 

"Ma, why are you here?" he asked.

She looked down at the desk for a few moments, and then she met his eyes.

"I've been summoned by the Ministry," she said quietly. "Something about registering."

Cormac nodded. He'd overheard conversations in the canteen about a Registration Commission.

"The Ministry said that it was just a formality, but your father and I have been hearing rumours."

"Rumours?" Cormac tried to recall the whispers he had heard. It couldn't be good. These days, things that were discussed in hushed tones were usually unpleasant.

"Well, the only people who are being registered are Muggle-borns."

He suddenly remembered what he had heard. That the commission wasn't about registration at all, but about blood purity. That people who had been summoned by the Registration Commission went down to the courts and never came back. That they were sent back to the Muggle world, or worse. And that anyone who tried to interfere disappeared too. He set down at his plate, suddenly dizzy.

"Where's Da?" he asked, his voice rough.

"At home." She tried to smile. "He hates London. You know that."

"He should be here," Cormac felt his face flushing as his anger rose. "You need someone to stand with you."

"I told him not to come, Cormac. It's better that I do this alone."

"But what if they send you back to the Muggle world?" _Or worse,_ he thought.

His mother stared down at the table and took a deep breath. "Whatever happens, you'll manage, love."

"But it's wrong, Ma," he said, clutching her hands tightly.

"Of course it is, dear. But it's the Ministry. There's nothing I can do about it." She pulled her hands from his and stood. "I came here to see you for two reasons, Cormac. The most important reason was to have lunch with my son." She came around the desk and stroked his hair. "But I need to ask you to do something for me."

"Anything, Ma, you know that."

"Keep an eye on your father for me? I need to know that he will be safe. I need to know that you will be safe. You two will need to be there for each other."

Cormac tried to swallow his fear. He wanted to tell her that she was being ridiculous, that she would be back in Elmeric's Corner for dinner. But he knew that she probably wouldn't be.

"Of course, Ma," he said, closing his eyes tightly when she leaned down and kissed the top of his head.

"That's my bonny boy."

Cormac huffed a laugh. It was a family joke - when he was little, he had hated it when his gran called him bonny, because only girls were bonny. But now it made him smile through his pain.

His mother sniffed, and then stepped away from him. "Well, let me clear up these things. I have to be downstairs in twenty minutes."

Twenty minutes? Cormac stood abruptly.

"Don't bother with the dishes, Ma. I'll take care of it," he took her hands. "Just sit with me for a while. Please."

His mother smiled, but there were tears in her eyes. She let him lead her to a bench, and they sat in silence. After a few minutes, she tugged her hands loose and wrapped her arms around him. Cormac leaned his head on her shoulder and breathed deeply, trying not to cry. His mum rocked him gently, like she had done when he was a child and had woken from a nightmare. It felt like he was suspended in time, until his mum kissed his hair and leaned back.

"Time for me to go, love."

Cormac made himself stand up and walk her to the door. He leaned down and wrapped his arms around his mother. How had he never realized how small she was? How fragile she was? She had always been his fierce, impossible Ma. When had she become this tiny woman?

"I love you, Cormac." She reached up and cupped his face in her hands. He bowed his head, blinking away tears.

"I love you, Ma," he choked on the words.

She stood on tip-toe and kissed his forehead. Cormac forced himself to smile through his tears. She patted his cheek.

"You take care of yourself."

He nodded, unable to speak, and leaned down to kiss her cheek.

"I am so proud to be your mother," she said. Then she turned and walked away.

* * *

**_January 1997_ **

The weather was absolutely brutal outside the cabin. The winter winds rattled the shutters and snow forced its way in through the cracks in the walls. The single room was dark, barely lit by the flames in the fireplace. Cormac pushed the door closed behind him and made his way to the fire, hoping to warm his shaking hands.

"What is the date?"

Cormac jumped and turned, pulling his wand as he did so. A figure in a dark cloak stepped from the shadows, wand drawn. Its face was hidden by a deep hood, but the voice was female. If he was lucky, this was his contact. If he wasn't… he kept his wand level.

"I said, what is the date?"

Cormac shook himself. Right, the date.

"October," he replied, "October thirty-first, nineteen-eighty-one."

The woman lowered her wand and stepped closer to the fire. She pushed back her hood, revealing a pale face with a raw-looking wound disfiguring the left side.

"They didn't follow you?"

"I apparated four times to get here. Even if they traced me from the explosion in Diagon Alley, they'll have a hard time finding my trail through the busiest public apparition points in Liverpool, Cardiff, and Glasgow. And I flew through the forest to get here from Stokesley."

"You flew through the forest?" she asked, looking at him skeptically. "On what? Brooms don't take well to shrinking spells."

"Mine does," Cormac said proudly. "My own design, my own charms. Want to see?"

The woman shook her head. "No time. Explain why you asked for this meeting."

"My mother was taken to a Death Eater camp six months ago. I think I have a lead on the camp, not far from here. On the moors."

"Interesting."

The woman stood in silence for a moment. Cormac swayed and reached out to the wall so he wouldn't embarrass himself by falling at her feet. A hand on his shoulder pushed him down into a chair that hadn't been there moments before.

"Sit down, boy. I'll let the others know where we are and then we'll take a look at those cuts and bruises."

Cormac leaned forward, elbows on knees. He heard the woman summoning her patronus and wondered briefly what it looked like. His own had turned out to be a bird that his father had identified as a red kite. His father had never produced a patronus, unable to come up with the emotion necessary for the spell, but Cormac liked to think that it also would have been a hawk.

His father. He should send a message to Elmeric's Corner, let Da know what he'd discovered. Except that Iain McLaggen would insist on coming to the moors, on storming the camp, and he'd get himself killed. It wouldn't be the first time his father had done something stupid and suicidal. Something had broken inside Da the day that the Death Eaters took his wife away, and Cormac couldn't figure out how to fix it.

Three months ago, Cormac brought his father to London, hoping to distract him from his obsessive hunt. Instead, he had watched in horror as Da stood in the middle of Diagon Alley and threw curses at known Death Eaters. When Cormac had intervened, the wizards had left him with a broken arm for his troubles. His father had been bedridden for weeks after the attack, so Cormac had left his job to take them both back to Scotland. Once Da was well enough to get by on his own, Cormac had taken up the hunt for his mother. It was that or watch his father get killed, he figured. Which was how he found himself in an abandoned cabin on the Yorkshire Moors allowing a complete stranger to heal his wounds.

"I'm Albina, by the way," the witch said as she slid her wand back into its sheath.

"Cormac," he replied. No one used last names any more, he'd noticed. Just like no one wore jewelry or colourful clothing. People healed wounds as quickly as possible to avoid scarring. Everyone was trying to avoid being identifiable.

"I could…" he gestured at her cheek.

"No, you can't," she said sadly, "no one can. It's a curse wound, a partially blocked Unforgivable. I can't even hide it properly - the concealment spell reacts to the curse."

"I'm sorry." Cormac didn't know what else to say. He knew the wound meant she could never go out in public, never risk being seen by a snatcher.

"I'm alive. That's good enough for me. I don't mind staying out of view, although I do miss sitting down for a pint of Rosmerta's lager and the Prophet crossword." She laughed. "It is strange, the simple parts of life that we take for granted."

Cormac nodded. He missed so many things about his life, things he'd never realized were important to him. Flying on a sunny day with no destination in mind, sitting in the pub with a pint and the Quidditch results, chatting with coworkers over a cup of tea on slow days at the Ministry. Eating beef and lager stew with his parents in their cozy home in Elmeric's Corner. Some days, as he chased and was chased, he was certain he'd never do any of these things again. Other days, believing that he would was all that kept him moving forward.

* * *

**_Present Day_ **

The bed felt less lumpy. Cormac blinked his eyes open and stared up at the ceiling, which had moved further away. He realized that he was lying on the floor where he'd passed out, but that someone had put a pillow under his head and tucked the blankets around him. Odd behaviour for someone who was holding him prisoner. But it was weirdly comforting to know that someone cared enough to take care of him, even if it was some Death Eater.

He thought about the search for his mother that had landed him in this prison. All those months with no word, he had almost given up so many times, had wanted to put his head down and let it all pass over him. But then he'd imagine his mother in a Death Eater camp and know that he couldn't stop searching. Now, in this cell, he wondered if his mother's guards treated her well. If they made sure that she was warm and had a pillow for her head. If she had found a way to survive the months of captivity without giving up hope.

The water cup was still sitting on the bedside table, but it was the plate beside it that caught Cormac's attention. Sitting up as quickly as he could manage, he scooted himself over to the food. It turned out to be scrambled eggs and oatmeal. It was the same kind of food his mum would feed him when he was sick, bland and mushy. If they'd been serving it at the Ministry canteen Cormac would have turned it away, but he was starving, so he gulped it down.

Once the food was gone, he sniffed at the water cup. He could smell the herbs that had knocked him out last time. Determined not to spend another night on the floor, he pulled himself up on the bed before reaching for the cup. His last thought as the drugs pulled him into darkness was ‘I wonder if Ma is in this prison, too.'

* * *

**_March 1997_ **

Aunt Susan closed the door gently and made her way down the hall to where Cormac was waiting.

"He's asleep. We should go down to the sitting room, though." Her voice was hushed, and he couldn't help notice that she kept glancing over her shoulder at the bedroom door.

Once they were downstairs, his aunt relaxed somewhat. She bustled about, making tea, setting out cookies, and the routine seemed to calm her. As Cormac watched her, he felt an aching pain in his chest. Aunt Susan wore Muggle clothes, and she had dyed her hair an improbable red colour, but as she fussed in the kitchen Cormac caught glimpses of his mother.

It had been seven months since Ma had fed him lunch at the Ministry. Seven months of searching, wishing, and trying to ignore the awful possibilities. Cormac had found his outlet in helping the resistance as best he could. But his father hadn't been able to control his fears, and when Iain McLaggen had collapsed in the street three weeks ago, Cormac had realized that it was time for drastic measures.

"Alright, my lad," aunt Susan began as she settled into the chair opposite his. "You know I'm always here for you and Iain, but whatever is going on here is beyond my ken. I need you to explain."

Cormac took a sip of scalding hot tea and tried to order his thoughts. Before he could reply, though, his aunt spoke again.

"Start with the hard part. Where is Mary? The truth, Cormac."

Cormac felt tears fill his eyes. "I don't know, auntie, I just don't know. I've been looking for her for months and I just..."

His aunt put down her tea and moved to wrap her arms around him. Hating himself for the display of weakness, Cormac closed his eyes and clung to her. For a brief moment, he rested his cheek against her curly hair and let himself pretend that it was his mother, not her sister, who rocked him and murmured nonsense. Then he straightened and pulled himself free.

"Ma was taken to prison in August," he said badly. "Not for a crime or any legal reason, but because there's a war happening in our world and she's on the wrong side of things."

Aunt Susan stared at him for a long moment, shock, fear, and anger chasing across her face.

"My baby sister has been in jail for seven months and you're only telling me now?" Her anger was making her hands shake, so Cormac clasped them in his. "Iain has been making excuses as to why she hasn't written for months now. You've both been lying to me!"

She pulled her hands free and walked out of the room. After a few minutes, Cormac followed her into the kitchen and found her sitting with a tumbler and a bottle of whiskey. He found another tumbler in the cupboards and poured himself a healthy tot.

"I probably shouldn't let you do that," Susan said with a wobbly smile, "being under age and all. But frankly, I don't care about rules today."

They drank in silence. Susan refilled her glass and put the whiskey back in the cabinet. "Alright," she said. "I think I'm ready for the rest."

They stayed in the half-lit kitchen as Cormac explained the war, the registration committee, and his mother's disappearance. Susan sat quietly though his description of the search for his mother, although she suppressed sobs when he told her about what they had found in the Death Eater camp on the moors. He wasn't surprised. The horrors he had seen there still haunted his dreams all these weeks later.

Finally, he told her about his father's decline, how Iain had fought too hard, until he'd had to hide. And how, after that, all the fight had gone out of him, until he could barely take care of himself. Cormac knew that an outspoken critic of the Death Eaters and their Ministry pawns wouldn't be safe in a wizarding hospital. He didn't have the money for a care-giver, and all his time was taken up in the hunt for his mother. He had discussed the situation with other members of the resistance, and their suggestion had been to take Iain to the Muggle world for help.

"So why is it that Iain acts as if he hardly knows me?" Susan asked. "Is it the grief?"

"Actually, auntie, it's more than that. I couldn't make him come here with me." Iain McLaggen had refused to leave out of fear that his wife would come home to an empty house. "I had to cast a spell on his mind to get him to come along."

He had struggled with the idea of wiping his father's mind right up to the day that Iain had left the kettle on the hob until it boiled dry and began to smoke. Cormac had come in to find out what was burning and found his father crumpled on the floor. At that point, Cormac had sent a letter to his aunt. He had also started to research variants of obliviate that could be used to clear the mind for long periods. There was no telling how long the war would go on for, and he couldn't risk his father regaining his memory in a Muggle hospital.

After days of searching, he heard through his resistance contacts that there was a spell for extracting the memories of a specific person from a mind. Apparently Hermione Granger, the irritating know-it-all that he'd fancied back at Hogwarts when life was simple and he had time for crushes on girls, had designed a way of removing herself from her parents' minds. Other Muggle-born members of the resistance had used it to protect their families, either by making their relatives forget about them or making themselves forget their families. Cormac learned the spell and used it to take away all of his father's memories of his wife.

With all knowledge of Mary gone from his mind, Cormac's father became completely helpless. The man that lay tucked in Aunt Susan's guest bed was little more than a shell. Every time he looked at Cormac, confusion would cloud his features, as though he were trying to identify someone in a years-old photograph. Iain had had the same reaction to his sister-in-law, and to every other element of his life that had once involved his wife. Cormac had worried that he had somehow botched the spell and damaged his father's brain, but the others had assured him that this was normal. All that could be done was to move his father to a place where there were no memories that would remind Iain of the gap where Mary had been.

"You used magic to force him here?" The look of horror on his aunt's face shocked him.

"No! No, auntie, I used magic to make him forget Ma for a little while. It's temporary, I promise. It's just, he was going crazy with her missing and I was afraid for him. This way he doesn't hurt anymore. But he's a little forgetful about things related to Ma."

His aunt gave him a piercing look that reminded him of his mother. He tried not to hunch down in his chair like a child being scolded.

"I had to, auntie. It's the only way he'll be safe in a Muggle hospital. And as soon as I find Ma, I'm going come get him and undo the spell." Although he didn't know how yet. If he couldn't figure it out, Granger would help - assuming she wasn't too busy playing side-kick to the Boy Who Lived. But Cormac figured that since so many people had used the spell, she'd have to share the counter-charm at some point. "And then we'll leave the wizarding world and live as Muggles until this war is over."

"How long will that be?"

Cormac wasn't sure if she meant 'how long until you find your mother?' or 'how long until the war is over?' but it didn't matter. The answer was the same either way.

"I don't know, auntie. I just don't know."

* * *

**_Present Day_ **

When Cormac drifted out of sleep, the room was in near darkness. He also felt chilled, and found himself fighting off shivers. He blinked a few times to see if his eyes would adjust to the darkness, with no success.

The feeling of cold was more easily fixed. He reached his right arm down to where the blanket covered his legs and scrabbled to pull it over his bare chest.

"Ah, ah, ah…" the voice came from the darkness beside his bed. Cormac's entire body jolted with shock at the sound.

"I'm not done yet." The woman continued in a whisper. At least Cormac assumed it was a woman; the voice was low and rough, but didn't sound male. "I've almost finished cleaning that shoulder. Then I'll wrap you up tight, alright?"

He nodded, and then felt foolish when he realized it was too dark for his captor to see him.

"ye… ye…" he choked on the word. He wondered how many days it had been since he'd last spoken.

"Don't talk. Your throat is probably still irritated. I've got more calendula water for you once I'm done here."

The woman laid her hand on Cormac's chest, making him shiver again. Her fingers were cool as they swabbed at his shoulder and fitted a pad against the joint. With efficient movements, she slid his arm back into the sling and tightened the straps. Cormac tried to make out details of her features, but what little light was in the room came from somewhere behind her and cast her face into patches of shadows.

"All done." She patted his uninjured shoulder. "Let's get you some water."

Cormac shook his head and coughed as he tried to speak.

"Water first. Then start with a whisper."

She tipped his head up with one hand, bringing the cup to his lips. After a few sips, Cormac closed his lips, causing water to splash across his cheeks and dribble down his neck, soaking his pillow. The woman tsked quietly and set aside the cup. She used the sleeve of her robe to dry his face and neck, and then slid the pillow from beneath his head, only to flip it around and put it back in such a way that he was no longer lying on a damp spot.

"Alright, then. What did you want to say?"

She was very kind, Cormac thought. Hardly what he would have expected from a Death Eater camp guard.

"Puh… Puh…" He tried. "Eee…" 

"You need to pee?" Cormac raised his hand to signal that she was right.

"Alright, then," she said, shifting on the stool. He heard a scraping sound and realized that she had pulled the chamber pot over. "Let's sit you up."

Cormac struggled into a sitting position, already woozy from the drugged water. She helped him to swing his legs over the side of the bed, positioning his feet on either side of the pot. He pushed himself towards the edge, bracing himself for the impact with the floor, when she stopped him with a hand on his thigh.

"Don't. I can't lift you off the floor if you fall."

"Buh…"

"Here."

She helped him slide forward until only his butt was on the mattress. Then she reached down and unlaced his trousers. Cormac felt a brief moment of embarrassment when she had him shift so she could pull his trousers down. Then she picked up the chamber pot and held it between his legs.

He looked down at her, noticing that she had angled her head so that she was politely staring at the wall. As he fumbled with his penis and began to pee, he was aware that he should feel ashamed of his current position, but all he could feel was relief and gratitude for her help.

When he finished, she tidied away the pot and wiped his hands with a damp cloth. Cormac settled back on the bed and accepted the rest of the drugged water, grateful for the sleep it would bring. It was only as he slipped into complete darkness that he realized that there had been something familiar in about his captor's silhouette.

* * *

**_Late April 1997_ **

Dear Aunt Susan,

I hope you are well. I'm sorry I haven't written since before Easter, but we haven't had a quiet moment for weeks. I hope you weren't too worried.

I knew I had to write you today because I have news. I think it's good news, but I don't want to put a hex on it. We have a line on a camp, I can't tell you where in case this letter is found, but it's a good lead. Our cell leader - I told you about her - she's taking out a reconnaissance team in the next few days and she asked me to be part of it. So if I don't write for another few weeks, it's because I'm on this mission. So don't worry.

Please give my love to Da. I know he won't understand, but tell him anyway. I miss him. I miss you, too.

Love,

Cormac 

He set down his quill and read over the letter. There wasn't anything in it that would put him or the cell at risk if his owl was intercepted. They had learned to be more careful after an owl circling down to Albina's Muggle brother's house was cursed out of the sky. Fortunately, her brother had been watching for the letter and ran out to pick up the mortally wounded bird. But it had been proof that the Death Eaters were closing in on their cell, that every message was at risk.

Cormac folded the parchment and sealed it with wax and string. He sat, watching the wax cool and harden. There were owls waiting outside his tent, but he didn't feel like leaving the relative sanctuary of his tent. Propping his elbows on the desk, he cradled his head in his hands and breathed in and out slowly.

"McLaggen?"

Bright light flooded across the desk as someone pushed open the tent's flap.

"McLaggen, the medi-witches say you haven't checked in with them." Albina's voice was curt. "You know the rules. Every member of the cell…"

"… has to be cleared by a medi-witch after a mission," Cormac finished for her. "I know. There was a bit of a line-up today. I thought I'd sit down for a bit and then head over to see Phoebe and Claire."

"McLaggen, you're bleeding in at least…" she paused and gave him an intense once-over, "… four places. They would have bumped you up the line."

Cormac shrugged, and then winced. Albina shook her head as she sat on his cot.

"Cormac, a building fell on you." Her voice had softened. "You need to get checked out."

"I'm fine," he insisted. "I just needed some time alone first."

"You're not fine, you've bled all over that letter you just wrote. Do you really want your aunt to see that?" Cormac looked down and noticed drops of blood on the wax, staining the string.

"If I go to the medi-witch, will you get off my back?" he asked, pushing himself up from the table.

"Not only will I get off your back, I'll fill you in on your next mission," she said. It was a blatant bribe, and it made Cormac smile. Albina knew exactly how to motivate him. As he limped out the tent, he heard her say. "Good work, today, by the way." It stopped him in his tracks.

"Good work?" he asked, feeling anger rise in his chest. "Good work? I lost two people out there today. Two good people, Albina! They're dead because I didn't check the wards well enough."

Albina grabbed his arm and began pulling him towards the medical tent. "Mortimer and Flynn died because the Death Eaters set a trap for us." Her voice was fierce. "You did everything according to protocol."

"Well, the protocol," Cormac stressed the word sarcastically, "was obviously not good enough. And who created that flawed protocol? Me. So I killed them."

"Oh, get stuffed, McLaggen!" Albina stopped in her tracks. "You improved our ward and curse checks a hundred-fold. But as perfect as you think you are, even you can't figure out every Death Eater trick.

"And don't think I don't know why you skipped your medical check. But you should know Phoebe isn't hiding from her brother's death. And she doesn't blame you. If she's strong enough to keep doing her job, you had better be man enough to keep doing yours."

Cormac couldn't do anything but hang his head in embarrassment. He knew that Albina didn't intend to be cruel, but her famous bluntness was hard to take at times. He stayed silent as she led him into the medical tent. The two witches there assessed him quickly, healing wounds and putting compresses on his swollen knee. They worked quietly, murmuring questions and spells.

When they were finished, Phoebe wrapped him in a tight hug.

"I heard you stayed with him until he… uh…" she couldn't continue. Cormac patted her back and felt his eyes burn with tears. "I just wanted to say thank you. I'm really glad he wasn't alone."

She squeezed him tightly and then rushed out of the tent. Claire sketched a wave in his direction and then followed her friend.

Cormac wiped a hand across his face and sighed deeply.

"I'm not one to say ‘I told you so' as a rule," Albina began.

Cormac snorted, his melancholy mood broken. "Yes, you are."

"Fine, I am. But that's not what I want to talk about, anyway. We have a mission to plan."

"Right," he agreed. "After you."

As they walked through the camp, she outlined what they had learned from the past several missions. While they had had no viable leads on camps since January, the cell had managed to foil several kidnappings of known anti-Death Eater activists. Albina had also tasked her best trackers to follow snatcher teams, trying to find common meeting points.

Once in the command tent, they added the latest information about the snatchers' trails to their growing map of Death Eater activities. With each report, the pattern had become more clear. By now, even the most skeptical members of the cell agreed that there was a key snatcher base in Scotland, not far from Hogsmeade. It was this base that Albina intended to hit.

She laid out the plan: a dawn attack, with three teams. She would lead the largest cell, which would target the prisoner tents, freeing and apparating away the captives. A second group would go to the tents identified as the command tents and steal as much paperwork and information as they could. Finally, a select group of wizards and witches would be sent into the camp to identify and, if possible, capture the leaders of the snatchers. Cormac would lead this group. They would attack at dawn on the second of May.


	2. Chapter 2

**_May 2, 1997_ **

The screams were distracting, he found. The wounded were making so much noise it was hard to concentrate on the duel he was fighting. Ducking a green blast of light, he hurled a curse in return. It hit its target, knocking the Death Eater to the ground.

Cormac ran through a field of rubble and bodies, ignoring everything but the man bleeding into the muddied grass. He reached the Death Eater's side and dropped to his knees.

"Tell me!" he screamed, his voice high. "Tell me where she is!"

The Death Eater coughed, choking on blood. "Why would I tell you, scum? You're as disgusting to me as your Mudblood mother. We're going to wipe all of you out."

"Fuck you!" Cormac screamed. He pointed his wand at the injured Death Eater's face. "Tell me or I cut your eyes out."

"Really?" the Death Eater laughed wetly, spitting more blood on his chin. "If you had the stones to torture me, you would have done it when you found me in the camp."

Cormac's wand hand shook. He had never felt so angry in his life, so close to losing control. It scared the shit out of him. But this man was all that stood between him and his mother. And nothing was going to stop him from finding her. Certainly not this disgusting monster.

He closed his eyes for a moment, ignoring the taunts the Death Eater spat out through mouthfuls of blood. He cleared his mind and focused on the spell he needed.

"Oculus Bulli…" He had almost completed the hex when the world exploded.

* * *

**_Present Day_ **

Cormac woke with a start, a scream trapped in his throat. He clawed his way out from the tangled blankets, the feeling of being pinned down driving his panic. When he finally freed himself of the grey wool, he pushed himself up until his back was against the wall and pulled his legs up to his chest. His heart pounded painfully fast and his breath came in gasps.

Memories of the explosion tumbled around his head. He could hear the shriek of the curse as it flew over his head, and then the cracking of the stones as they broke from the mortar. He saw the face of the Death Eater beneath him contort in shock and fear. He felt the first small rocks hit his back, then larger stones, and finally a sharp pain in his head as the light went out of the world.

He sat, shaking, for long minutes, waiting for his mind to clear. Before he'd completely calmed down, he heard the sound of a key in a lock. Panic rose in his throat again. He held his breath like a terrified child as the cell door opened inwards. A woman in grey robes backed into the room, pushing the door with her hip as she balanced a tray in her hands. She stepped clear of the door, letting it swing closed, and turned to fully face the bed. Cormac choked on his trapped breath.

At the sound, Hermione Granger stopped in her tracks. She stared at him for a moment, and then smiled.

"You're awake. Glad to see it." She walked over to the bedside table and carefully set down the tray. "I have some food here, and I'd like to check your bandages if you'll let me."

Cormac nodded mutely. He doubted he could have responded, even if his throat hadn't felt completely raw. The sight of Hermione Granger in this prison cell was beyond his understanding.

"Alright, would you like to eat first, or bandages first?"

He stared at her in confusion. She waited a moment, and then picked up the basin of water from the tray and set it on the foot of the bed.

"Bandages it is. Come here." She tugged at his left ankle. Slowly, Cormac unfolded his legs and allowed her to guide him until he was sitting at the edge of the bed. A feeling of déjà vu came over him.

"Right, shirt off," Hermione said briskly, tugging it up his sides. He lifted his free arm and allowed her to deal with maneuvering the fabric around his sling. "And sling off." She unfastened the ties and released his injured arm.

There was something off about her cheerful manner, he realized. He looked down at her hands and saw that the skin was reddened, dry and sore looking. There were bruises peeking out from the sleeves of her robes, circling her wrists. He stared at the top of her head. The long, tangled mass he remembered from Hogwarts was gone. Instead, her hair was cropped close, curls erupting all over her head. The cut was ragged, though, as if it had been done with shears or a knife, rather than properly with a wand.

Hermione dipped a rag in the water basin and started to wipe the fear sweat from his shoulders. Slowly, gently, she smoothed the cloth down his arms, lifting and turning them so she could clean every inch of him. Cormac found himself relaxing under her careful touch, shedding the lingering terror from his nightmares.

"That's better, yeah?" Hermione asked as she set his right hand back in his lap. She tipped her head up as she spoke, and Cormac sucked in his breath. There was a jagged cut tracing its way down her cheek, surrounded by fading bruising.

"Sorry, did I hurt you?" she asked, her eyes narrowing in concern.

Cormac shook his head slightly.

"Alright. But let me know if anything hurts. I can't treat it if I don't know it's there. And this is the first time you've been completely awake when I was here."

He nodded, feeling his face flush. If Hermione had been in this cell before, then that explained why the woman he had seen when he was last conscious had seemed so familiar. The woman who had been treating him, the woman who had held the chamber pot and listened to him pee, that had been Hermione. All the embarrassment he hadn't felt at the time flooded through him.

She was inspecting the wound on his shoulder now, cleaning it and applying herbal compresses. He noticed that the wound looked days old, with a firm scab and tight new skin around the edges. The last time he'd seen a wound heal like that had been when Simon Browning had stumbled back into camp days after a raid, his wand smashed to pieces. Browning's wounds had already started the tedious natural healing process. Cormac had to assume that he was suffering the same thing. No wonder he hurt so much, in so many places.

Hermione wrapped his shoulder in a clean bandage and patted his arm.

"Alright, let's get you into a fresh shirt." She pulled a tee-shirt from the pile of cloth she'd brought in with her. Like the one she'd taken off Cormac, it had probably started off white but was now a dingy grey. The collar on this one was frayed, and there was a hole in the right armpit. Once they'd managed to pull it over his head and around his injured arm, it became obvious that the shirt had originally belonged to a much smaller man.

"Well, that's a bit snug," Hermione observed. "It's not uncomfortable, is it?"

Cormac shook his head. She smiled and went to work refastening his sling. He closed his eyes and tried to piece together what was happening to him. He was clearly in some sort of cell, but Hermione Granger was here to take care of him. She was allowed to leave the cell, bring food and water, clothes and medicine, except she wasn't allowed a wand. What else would explain the fact that he'd been healing like a Muggle, that she had brought him herbs rather than using spells?

So the question was, was she a captive like him? Was she treating him against her will? How had she got the bruises on her arms and cut on her face?

He cleared his throat roughly, trying to find his voice.

"Need some water?" Hermione looked up from where she was tying the final knot. When he nodded, she reached for the tray. Cormac must have made a face, because she said "Don't worry, it doesn't have a sedative this time. Just healing herbs. So drink."

He took the water cup and sipped slowly. The drink was sweeter today, and made his throat feel much better. Cormac drank down half the water before Hermione tugged the cup from his hand.

"C'mon now, leave some for after your supper." She smiled at him as she put the cup back on the tray. "And now, let's check out the cuts on your legs."

"Whuh…?" Cormac's right hand shot to his waist, where Hermione had started unfastening his sleep bottoms.

"You have a couple of bad grazes on your legs, Cormac," she explained. "Don't worry, you can keep your shorts on."

He felt himself blush, and he ducked away from her amused gaze. She chuckled slightly and went to work pulling off the thin cotton sleep wear. The baggy trousers slid off easily, and he realized that they were also someone else's clothing - Cormac had never owned a pair of striped pyjamas, let alone orange ones with a faded logo printed down one leg. At least his underwear seemed to fit - perhaps it was actually his - but it was clear that the other clothes he wore were not his. Whoever had captured him had redressed him rather than repairing his robes.

"These aren't looking so bad," Hermione commented as she ran her fingers over the red, raw-looking patches on the sides of his legs. The sensation made him shiver, not so much from the pain as from his oversensitive healing skin. She quickly pulled her hand away and Cormac reached out to stop her.

"Doesn't hurt," he explained, and then coughed. His voice was low and raw but it was easier to speak than before.

"Good."

"Where… we?" he asked.

She sat back on her heels and looked at her hands.

"That's hard to say," she said finally.

"Camp?"

"Camp?" she repeated, looking confused.

"Death… Eaters? Prison?"

"Not exactly."

"Why you?"

"Why me what?"

Cormac gestured at the tray, the discarded bandages, and asked again "why you?"

"Oh, why am I treating you?" He nodded. "Well, no one else could heal you. I know how, so it fell to me. Now, I'm going to put some salve on these and then you can have your dinner."

He leaned back and let her work on his legs. Whoever was keeping him prisoner was using Hermione to nurse him because medi-witches without Muggle backgrounds wouldn't know how to heal someone without a wand. And it made sense, sort of, that they would have the prisoners take care of each other. He wouldn't put his medics at risk by letting them in a cell with a Death Eater. But that left another question.

"Are we… watched?"

"Do you mean, is someone watching us now?"

"Now. Ever." He needed to know what kind of surveillance he was under.

"No. There's no one watching. We're entirely alone in here."

"Outside?"

"Outside is different. You're not going out there any time soon, Cormac." Hermione patted his knee. "Not on these legs."

"Harry?" He hated asking, but he had to know.

"Harry?" She raised an eyebrow. "What about Harry?"

"Where?"

"I’m not sure," she said. "Not here, if that's what you're worried about. Now let's get you dressed and fed."

Hermione bustled about, sorting out his clothing, moving him in the bed until he was propped up against his pillow. As she fed him his dinner - a watery porridge, followed by an omelet with cheese - Cormac took stock of his situation. He was in some kind of prison, injured and healing without magic. If that weren't bad enough, Hermione Granger was also in the prison. As much as he had disliked her and her gang by the end of his time at Hogwarts, the past year had proven that they were a necessary part of the War. Hermione Granger in the hands of the Death Eaters was a very, very bad thing.

* * *

Cormac was currently sitting on the three-legged stool staring at the door. He'd woken, screaming, from another nightmare, this one of the carnage he'd seen at the prison camp on the moors. He believed it was the third day since he'd woken from his nightmare into Hermione Granger's care. Cormac didn't have much of a sense of time, but he began to keep count of when the window was dark when he woke, and when it was light. He thought that he might be sleeping less, maybe only for half a day at a time, because it seemed that every other time he woke there was light outside the window. Perhaps it was a sign that he was healing, but it probably had more to do with the fact that there were fewer sedative herbs in his water.

One good part of not being as heavily drugged was that Cormac felt far more observant. He carefully examined his entire cell, first from his bed and then on foot as his energy came back. The window proved to be out of reach for a man in a sling, and there were no cracks in the walls or ceiling that hinted at weak points. The door was sturdy wood, painted the same dark brown as the heavy wooden furniture. There was no handle or keyhole on this side of the door. It opened inwards, though, which meant that the hinges were inside the cell. He spent a lot of time examining the hinges, trying to determine how he could remove the pins without drawing the attention of his captors.

He also considered the fact that with the door opening inwards, it would fairly easy to wait for Granger to come in, grab her, and rush the door before it closed. That plan entirely depended on what kind of guard was posted outside the door when Granger was sent in, though, and she wasn't being very open about the prison's security. Even though she had assured him that no one was watching or listening to them in the cell - Death Eaters weren't likely to buy Extendible Ears at WWW, he supposed - she was still cagey about what other surveillance existed.

If his observations were correct, Hermione should be arriving shortly. He had noticed the past five times he'd woken that she appeared not long after he began moving around and making noise. Which meant that they might not be watching inside the cell, but they were certainly listening outside. It had been ten minutes since he had woken, used the chamber pot, and dragged the stool across the cell floor as loudly as possible. He was counting the eleventh minute when he heard a latch click, followed by the door swinging open.

Hermione entered the room backwards, as she always did. On one level, that upset Cormac - who entered a room with their back to whatever danger might be inside? But he also found it reassuring - she clearly felt that the greater danger was outside the door. She trusted him. After months on the run with the resistance, where anyone could be an imperiused spy, he had forgotten how good it felt to be fully trusted.

Hermione placed her tray on the bedside table and began to unpack her medical supplies. She turned slightly and smiled at him over her shoulder.

"You going to burn your way through that door with the power of your stare?" she teased.

Cormac smiled, feeling the twinge of the healing cuts on his face. "Just needed to get out of bed," he said. "I was having nightmares; the sheets are damp."

"Well, you'll be happy to know that I have fresh sheets for you." Hermione patted a bundle she had dropped beside the bed. "And clean clothes."

Cormac left the stool and set to work picking open the knots that held the bundle closed. His fingers were trembling slightly, and Hermione laid her hand over his.

"Eat first," she said. "You need food, your blood sugar's low. I'll deal with this."

She lifted the bundle away from him, and then brought the stool over to the table. "Sit." She gently pushed him onto the seat, and reached across him for the napkin. As she leaned over his shoulder, he felt her warmth against his back and smelled the clean, plain scent of her. It appeared she had been given the same soap she used on him. Cormac decided it smelled nicer on her.

Hermione unfolded the napkin and tucked it into the loose collar of his tee-shirt. She handed him the soup spoon and patted his uninjured shoulder. He felt his muscles relax under her touch and had to resist the temptation to lean into her touch. It was only when she moved away that he turned his attention to his food.

While he ate, Hermione efficiently stripped the bed, flipped the mattress, and remade the bed with clean sheets. She was replacing the grey wool blankets as Cormac scraped the last drops of soup from the bowl. There was something domestic about the scene, something that reminded him strongly of home, and so he finally gave in and asked the question he'd been avoiding since she had first appeared in his cell.

"Hermione," he began, and then lost courage. She finished patting the blankets into place before she turned to face him. The inquisitive look on her face reminded him of Hogwarts days, when he had found her insatiable need for knowledge so attractive, and for a moment he wished for a time-turner to take him back to that time. But the bruises and cuts across her cheek brought him back to the present and his question.

"Hermione, have you seen my mother? Is she in this camp?"

Cormac watched as her face fell. He felt the pain blossom in his chest before she even began to speak. He desperately wanted to deny what she was about to say – to yell and tell her she was wrong, wrong, wrong – but something inside him broke, instead. He found himself holding his breath, knowing what she was going to say but hoping to Merlin she wouldn’t say it.

"I'm so sorry, Cormac," Hermione said finally. "Your mother was in the camp near Hogwarts. The resistance found her, but it was too late. I'm so, so sorry."

It was like a wall had been knocked down and all the pain he had been hiding from – all the sadness and fear and grief – washed over him. He felt his body shake before he even realized that he was crying. The tears that ran down his cheeks fell onto his clasped, shaking hands. He didn't know how long he sat like that before he crumpled off the stool and fell to the floor. He heard a strange keening noise and noticed, distantly, that it was coming from his mouth. This went on for hours, or minutes, until he became aware of a new sensation.

Someone was running a hand over his tangled hair. There was another hand smoothing up and down his back. The contact felt soothing; it let him focus outside of himself and drew him out of the pain he was feeling. Slowly, he pulled himself back into the room and forced himself to think about the hand in his hair, the movement on his back. After a time, he opened his eyes and rolled onto his back.

Hermione scrambled back when he shifted, and Cormac winced as her hand snagged in his curls. He reached out and grabbed her hands.

"Please, don't stop," he begged.

"I…" she tried to tug her hands free, her eyes wide. "Uh… I… You should… Please let go!"

Cormac loosened his grip, surprised by the panic in her voice. Hermione pulled away and pushed herself to her feet, turning away from him. Her behaviour was so out of character for the confident, aggressive girl he had known at Hogwarts that he was distracted from his grief. The pain of his mother's death formed itself into a hard, burning ache behind his eyes and in his chest, but he no longer felt out of control.

"You should get changed," Hermione said, her voice still shaky. She bent down to scoop up the clean clothes she had brought for him. He could see another stretched out t-shirt and a pair of green cotton trousers. She shoved the bundle into his hands and turned to the basin of washing water.

She brought the water basin over so that he could take up the washcloth. He nodded in silent thanks and scrubbed the cloth across his face, wiping away his tears. Methodically, he began to run the wash rag down his neck, using the ritual motions as a distraction from his grief.

“Thank you,” he said. “I really am grateful, you know,” he added after a moment.

“It’s no matter,” Hermione said as she helped him pull the shirt over his head. “I’m only sorry I can’t help more.”

“Don’t be sorry!” Cormac shifted so he could look her in the eyes. “I know a little bit about what goes on in most Death Eater camps, and I am very, very glad you’re here to take care of me. I can’t begin to imagine what you had to do to be allowed this much.”

Hermione ducked her head and spent a few moments fussing with the bindings on his sling. “I needed to help. No one else was helping you, so I had to.”

“And is that why…” he trailed off, not sure how to ask. When she glanced up in question, he gestured at her bruised face.

“That’s part of why I’m here,” she said, glancing away again. She pushed at his uninjured shoulder, forcing him to turn so she could wash his back.

“I’m sorry,” Cormac said trying to look at her over his shoulder. “Really, you shouldn’t put yourself at risk for me.”

Hermione snorted lightly at his words. “It’s a little late for that. But don’t worry about me. I’m fine for the moment.” She ran the cloth up and down his back in long, soothing strokes. “I’m more concerned about you. Your mother…” 

Tears rose in his eyes, but he managed to keep his voice level as he said “I’ll be alright.”

“You don’t have to be,” she said gently. “I know it doesn’t seem like it, but this is a safe place to grieve. We’re not going anywhere anytime soon, not until you’re feeling better.”

Cormac had to acknowledge the truth of that – he wasn’t in any shape to attempt an escape, not yet. As soon as his wounds healed, though, he was going to break them out of this camp and get Hermione back to Potter’s side. Then he was going to destroy every Death Eater who crossed his path.

* * *

Cormac's life found a rhythm. He woke from nightmares into a prison cell twice daily. The nightmares changed; the cell never did. The routine of his days was fixed. Without a timepiece, he relied on the cell's window for his sense of time. He referred to the hours when there was light outside the cell's window as his ‘morning.' It was when Hermione would bring him oatmeal for breakfast and check his more superficial wounds. Cormac didn't much like mornings, partly because his food was drugged with sleeping potion but also because Hermione always seemed more tense and on edge during these visits. 

The period of the day when he woke into near darkness was ‘evening' and this was when Hermione would bring clean clothes along with his food. Evening was also when she examined his shoulder and bathed him. His food was not drugged in the evening, only his water, and Hermione allowed him to put off drinking that until she decided he was too tired. As he healed, Cormac was able to stay alert and awake for hours. Hermione would usually sit with him during this time, and they would talk.

The first night that Hermione let him stay awake after his bath, they talked of his mother. She had been scrubbing his back and something about her actions triggered a memory of his mother bathing him when he was just a child. Before he could stop himself, he'd pulled away and curled into himself, shaking with sobs.

He could feel Hermione sitting beside him, but she made no attempt to touch him and he was grateful for that. After the incapacitating wave of grief passed, he sat up. She passed him the washrag without a word and he scrubbed his face and hands.

"I miss her so much," he said, eventually.

Hermione nodded. "And you always will. But it will hurt less over time, become an ache rather than agony. That's how grief works." She pulled the cloth from his hands and rinsed it out. With gentle strokes, she washed his neck and shoulders. "It's better that you process it now, though. If you let it build up inside, it can be dangerous."

Cormac snorted. "Dangerous? What, I'm going to cry the Death Eaters into surrendering?"

The cloth stopped its slow movement. Hermione seemed to be weighing her answer. "No, dangerous to you. You need to accept your mother's death and deal with it so that it doesn't fester in your mind."

"And become a weakness, you mean?" he said slowly, understanding. She was afraid that he would become like his father, damaged to the point where he wouldn't be able to fight his way out of this prison. Cormac couldn't let that happen - he had to get out of here, he had to get _Hermione _out of here.__

"Weakness isn't the word I would use," Hermione resumed bathing his left arm, "but I think you understand my concern."

He nodded, taking the cloth from her so that he could wash his chest and stomach while she prepared his sling.

"Is there some way to do that?" he asked.

"Do what?" Hermione's face creased in confusion. He noticed that the bruising and scrapes on her cheek had almost completely faded. Her dark eyes stood out against her pale skin. He had always liked those eyes, the sharp intelligence and curiosity behind them.

"What you said, ‘process my grief' in a safe way," he explained.

Hermione smiled sadly as she stood up. She reached for his injured shoulder and began wrapping his arm securely to his side.

"There's no one way, if that's what you're asking for." She tugged the binding tight, her arms wrapped around his chest. For a moment, Cormac imagined what it would be like if she was hugging him rather than treating him. The thought of being surrounded by her warm softness, her scent of lemon soap and skin, caught his mind. He was tempted to raise his free arm to pull her close, but she pulled away before he could act.

"Anyway, I think that you've done more grieving than you realize," she continued. "All those months of searching… I know a lot of people who passed through much of their grief during that time, because they had been afraid their parent or child or sibling was gone. For them, the hardest part was accepting the fact that their loved one truly was dead after denying the possibility for so many months."

She changed the subject then, and Cormac let her. He didn't really understand what she was on about, but he trusted her to know how all this worked. Even if she hadn't lost her parents to the War, he knew that she had seen more than her fair share of death. Besides which, she was Hermione Granger. He couldn't imagine that there was a subject on earth she didn't know more about than he did, except maybe Quidditch.

* * *

The next time they talked about his mother, it was because she came into the cell one morning as he was screaming his way out of sleep. Cormac's nightmare crashed into reality as he opened his eyes to find that he had grabbed Hermione by the shoulders and had her pinned to the cot. The look of absolute terror in her eyes shocked him and he scrambled backwards.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry." He stuttered out apologies as she pushed herself off the cot and stumbled towards the door. She was shaking as badly as he was, he noticed, and she banged her leg against the wooden stool, knocking it across the room.

"I'm… Don't…" she held out her arms as if to hold him off. "Your food is there. I'll be back." She rapped on the door and it swung inward. With one final glance, she slipped out of the cell, leaving Cormac in shock.

That evening, she tried to apologize for her behaviour. By then Cormac had pieced together more of his nightmare, and he refused to accept her apologies.

"It's my fault," he said, wishing he could reach out and take her hand. Hermione was sitting on the wooden stool tonight, rather than at the end of his bed. She had tried to be subtle about it, but he noticed that she had placed the stool well out of arm's reach and hadn't turned her back on him once. He felt terrible for having frightened her so badly and desperately wanted to fix it. "I was dreaming of the Death Eater camp that we raided last winter. I found my mother." He shook his head. "I mean, in my dream. In reality, she wasn't there. But a lot of people were and it was horrible."

Hermione nodded silently, her eyes on the floor. "I've heard stories."

Cormac snorted. "Trust me, no story could even begin to describe what I saw," he said bitterly. "We had a photographer with us for the camp on the moors. Jessminda, I think her name was. She was in Hufflepuff a couple years ahead of me. Anyway, she took pictures of what we found. Who we found." He stared down at his hands, trying to banish the images from his mind. "So that when this is all over, people will know where their families are. Then we buried them."

There was a scraping sound, and then a small hand covered his fingers. He looked up slowly, trying to not spook her. She smiled sadly and squeezed his clasped hands.

"I heard about that camp. I heard that you organized the photographs and tried to hide how bad things were so the families wouldn't have to know."

He felt his chest tighten. "People shouldn't have to think of their parents or their kids like that." The starved, bruised, filthy corpses he'd seen rose to his mind's eye and he dropped his head. He wondered if that was what his mother had looked like, in the end.

"You're right," Hermione said, "We shouldn't. _You_ shouldn't. You should remember the good times with your mother." He felt something brush against his jaw briefly. Then he felt her hand cup his cheek. He couldn't stop himself from leaning into her touch. "Tell me about her?"

Cormac sighed deeply. He couldn't think where to start and then a memory came into his mind.

"She absolutely loved tulips," he said, sitting up slightly. Hermione's hand dropped from his face to rest on his arm. "Any colour, any type. We had a rainbow of them in the back garden. Thing is, her birthday is in October, which isn't exactly tulip season in Scotland. So one year - I must have been about six - I spent an entire week at primary school drawing and cutting out tulips and gluing them to sticks. The morning of her birthday, Da and I went out into the garden and planted all these wobbly, lumpy paper tulips." He smiled at the memory.

"When Ma saw them, she cried, and then she laughed. She and I ‘picked' every single one and she put them in vases all around the house. I think she left them there until the real tulips bloomed, but I might be imagining that part."

Hermione smiled and patted his hand. "She sounds like a great mother."

"She is," Cormac's throat tightened. "She was. She took such good care of me and Da, and the one time she needed me to take care of her, I couldn't."

He stopped, expecting Hermione to argue with him. She stayed silent, her eyes fixed on his face. After a long moment, he began again. "I should have never let her go to the Registration Commission. We could have hidden her somewhere. I heard of people hiding in the attics and cellars of their Muggle families' homes."

Hermione raised her left eyebrow.

"Fine, maybe they would have gone after Aunt Susan. Maybe not, though." Her other eyebrow went up. Cormac pulled his hands free from hers. "Look, hiding worked for some people, right? Whatever the risk, it's still better than the camps. You gotta admit that much," he demanded.

She nodded. "Azkaban would have been kinder than some of the camps," she agreed, staring down at her fingers.

Cormac stared at her curly hair in surprise. This was her idea of helping him with his grief, reminding him of the suffering the Death Eaters had inflicted?

"I know that, I was there!" He pushed himself back until he was leaning against the wall. "I saw what happened in those camps, so I know exactly how bad it was. And I spent months looking for the camp where they had my Ma and never got anywhere. Curses on me, I found five times as many dead prisoners as I did living. Some help I was."

He leaned his head back, hitting the wall hard. The pain brought tears to his eyes, but he squeezed them closed, letting the drops run down his cheeks. Why should he care if Hermione Granger saw him cry? It wasn't like he was any use to her anyway, injured and imprisoned, clearly incompetent at protecting anyone, including himself.

The mattress shifted beneath him. Hermione's weight settled to his right but he refused to turn his head or even open his eyes. After a while, her hand settled on his arm, warm and damp.

"You made a difference, Cormac. Maybe it feels like nothing right now, but you helped save dozens of lives in that Hogsmeade camp that you raided before the Battle of Hogwarts. And you brought answers to families with those photographs. You brought them closure, maybe even peace. Now you have to let yourself have that, too, Cormac."

He shrugged her hand of his arm in irritation, but immediately regretted it. She didn't touch him again as she continued.

"You did what you knew how to do, Cormac. You were what? Seventeen, eighteen years old? Half the age of most Death Eaters - less even. You did everything you could and it was more than most people did. I know that that won't bring back your parents. But I hope that you'll think about that and realize that you don't deserve to carry all this guilt."

He shook his head slowly, not sure how to argue with her but certain she was wrong. Hermione huffed lightly and pushed herself off the bed. She handed him his clean clothes and turned her back so he could change. They finished the rest of their evening routine in silence, which suited him just fine.

Finally, he swallowed his drugged water and handed her the cup. As she crossed to the door, she made a point of meeting his eye and said "It's not your fault, Cormac. Would your family want you to be punishing yourself, or would they want you to live your life? Think about that."

She rapped on the door and let herself out before he could reply.

* * *

"And here I was, thinking you knew everything about everything," he laughed. "All my illusions, shattered!"

Hermione grinned up at him. She was sitting on the cot, with her back against the wall and her legs stretched out in front of her. Cormac was up on his feet, pacing the cell and stretching his legs. Over the past couple of days, his energy started coming back and he found himself getting restless and irritable. Hermione informed him that he jumpier than a jarvey and about as pleasant, so she was doing her best to make him laugh.

“Trust me, living out of a handbag taught me all sorts of things I never knew at Hogwarts. I certainly missed the days when all I worried about was the next essay.”

“Or Snape’s ‘surprise’ tests?”

“I think fondly of those,” she said with a nod. “And I long for a good lecture from Binns.”

“He had good lectures?” Cormac smiled and pinched the toe of her right shoe. Hermione immediately kicked out at his hand with her other foot. He barely snatched his fingers away safely.

“Reflexes like that, you should have been on the Quidditch team. Give Harry a challenger for seeker,” he suggested.

“That would require me to have actual skill on a broomstick,” she pointed out. “Rather than my current ‘hang on for dear life and pray it ends soon’ approach to flying.”

“You don’t like flying?” he grabbed the stool and pulled it over so he could sit beside the bed. If he chose to sit out of range of her feet, it was because he was giving her space, right?

“Can’t stand it.” Hermione pulled her right leg up, wrapping her arms around it, and rested her cheek on her knee. Cormac did his best to ignore the fact that her robes hitched up and exposed her left leg from the knee down.

“Afraid of heights?” he asked, dragging his eyes up to her face.

“Not really. Afraid of falling, I’ll admit. But…” She stared at the wall behind his head for a moment. “I guess it’s a matter of control.”

“But you have all the control, on a broom. It’s just you and the broom.”

Hermione rocked her head back and forth. “Except that I didn’t make the broom. What if the broom maker was having a bad day and their spell-work doesn’t hold up?”

“So if you made the broom, you’d have no problems flying?” he suggested.

“Well, I’d have problems,” she smiled. “I’m a complete amateur. I’ve met five-year-olds who can fly better. But I’d be more willing to learn.”

Cormac smiled broadly. “Well, aren’t you in luck? I happen to be a bit of an expert with brooms. I know all the spells, legal and illegal. I’ve even created a few of my own. I could teach you how to charm your own broom.”

“Where’d you learn about broom charms?” Hermione asked. She loosened her grip on her leg and leaned back. The hem of her robe rose even higher and Cormac was momentarily distracted by her knee. It was a damn good looking knee. When had he ever found knees attractive? Was it because he’d been locked up for weeks? Or did Hermione just have unusually sexy knees?

“Cormac?” Hermione’s voice was low. “Are you getting tired? Do you want to lie down?”

“Ah, no. No. No, no. I just…” he stuttered for a moment. “I just got lost there for a moment. Sorry. What were you saying?”

“I asked about how you learned broom charms. They don’t teach those at Hogwarts. Probably to keep people from ‘improving’ the school brooms.”

He chuckled. “Probably. I would have loved to be able to improve my broom back then. Not that it would have helped my game. I wasn’t much of a player.” Hermione looked like she was going to argue, but Cormac waved her protest away. “But I had a knack for charms, so I went to work for the Ministry.”

For the rest of the night, and the following three evenings, Cormac talked about his time at the Ministry. As he told Hermione about the job, his co-workers, his Uncle’s luxury flat, he realized how much he missed all of it. It had been a good job, with good people. And Uncle Tiberius’s flat was brilliant.

“If I’d known then what was going to happen, well, I’d have taken advantage of it,” he said the fourth night.

“How d’you mean?” Hermione asked. She was back on the bed again, but this time Cormac sat beside her. The dinner tray was between them, but he couldn’t be arsed to move it.

“I don’t know. Had parties. Spent more time with the fellas from work. Found a girl.” At that last one, he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. She didn’t show any reaction, and he felt strangely disappointed. “I just wish I’d _lived_ a little before everything went to shit.”

“You know that when we win this war, you’ll get to do all of that and more,” Hermione said.

Cormac shook his head. “You’re assuming we’ll win. Which I hope we do, but it wasn’t looking great last time I was out there. And you’re assuming you and I will survive. I know for a fact that not many people in camps survive.” He took a deep breath, feeling his anger rise. “And if all that goes right, I still have to go back to Scotland and find my Da and restore his memories of Ma. And then I have to tell him she’s dead. But after that I get all the parties and shagging I want.”

He pushed himself up off the bed and began to pace. Five steps from wall to wall. Back and forth, back and forth. He forced himself to breathe deeply, to unclench his fists. After a few minutes, Hermione’s calm voice cut through his confused thoughts.

“You did the right thing for your father, you know.”

Cormac stopped pacing and glared at her. “How can you know that? I wiped his mind and locked him in that hospital. How is that any better than what Death Eaters do? Using Imperius, putting people in camps.”

“That’s hardly the same thing, Cormac!” Hermione sat up straight. “You were protecting him. It was safer to take him away from the war. He couldn’t handle it.”

He sat heavily on the stool and dropped his head into his hands. “He was going to get himself killed. I couldn’t just stand by and watch him kill himself.”

Images of his father’s frail shoulders as he walked into the hospital burned in his eyes. He remembered the fraying collar of the blue cardigan that Aunt Susan had wrapped around his Da’s shoulders as they left her house, and the look of bewilderment that Iain had given him as they said goodbye at the doors. Tears stung at his eyes.

A gentle hand smoothed over his shoulder. He jumped slightly, then settled. Hermione’s hands ran back and forth over his shoulders, first one, then both, until Cormac couldn’t hold back his tears. He curled into himself, trying to cry quietly, and her arms came around his shoulders, one hand gently stroking his hair.

After a while, the pain felt more manageable and Cormac was able to control his sobs. He leaned against Hermione, resting his head on her shoulder, and breathed the scent of her warm skin. Being in her arms filled him with comfort, a sense of peace that he hadn’t felt since before the War. It wasn’t that the pain went away – his heart still bled at the thought of his mother’s death, his father’s madness – but in this moment he felt that he could face that pain without being destroyed by it.

Tentatively, he slid his arms free from where they were pinned between him and Hermione. She stilled at the movement. Cormac waited for her to pull away, but she didn’t. He could feel her breath coming in short pants against the side of his neck, and her arms around his back were tense. He remained as motionless as her, not wanting to do anything to spook her and lose the closeness.

Then he felt her hand slide across his hair again, combing through the curls. He sighed against her neck and leaned closer. His arms moved to wrap around her. Again, Hermione froze at the contact, but Cormac kept his touch light and she relaxed against him.

They sat in silence for long minutes, her hand in his hair, his gently stroking her back. Eventually, her hand slid to his neck and she murmured “Feeling better?” into his hair.

He had to clear his throat before he could speak. “Yeah. A bit.”

“Good.” Hermione slid out of his arms and sat back on her heels. “It’s getting late. I should go.” He nodded, pushing down the disappointment that he felt. “I’ll see you in the morning, yeah?”

“Yeah,” he agreed. He stood up and helped her gather her things. Once everything was packed onto the tray, she handed him the goblet of drugged water. He gulped it down. “G’night Hermione.”

“Goodnight, Cormac. Rest is the best healer for you now.” She knocked on the door to be let out. “Sleep well.”

* * *

“How’s your shoulder feeling?” Hermione asked as she stripped the sheets from the cot.

Cormac raised his arms above his head and brushed the ceiling with his fingertips. “It’s great. Not even a twinge,” he lied. He lowered his arms smoothly, though, and ignored the slight pain. He’d been doing exercises for eleven days, ever since Hermione noticed that he was staying awake all day long. The stretches and such seemed to work like slow healing magic.

“Is that so?” Hermione finished with the sheets and came over to stand behind him. She pressed up under his shoulder blade and Cormac hissed. "Lift your arm up." He carefully raised his arm. Hermione supported the movement with a hand under his elbow. She placed her other hand on his shoulder and appeared to be feeling for something. "That's a lot smoother, isn't it?" she asked.

"Mmmm… It aches sometimes," he admitted.

"It will," she agreed. "Dislocation does a lot of damage to the surrounding muscles."

"Dislocation?" Cormac asked, surprised. He hadn't realized that that was what had happened.

"I think so," Hermione had moved to the junction of his shoulder and neck. "I didn't put it back in, but it looked like it was dislocated. It also looks like you’ve been doing your exercises.”

He had. And he had begun to add his own exercises to Hermione’s. They were a bastardization of the fitness and flexibility training he’d done while travelling with the resistance, adapted to fit the tiny cell. The routines were boring, but he could feel his strength returning and with it, his alertness and determination to escape. Now it felt like his every waking thought was of potential ways to break out.

Every time Hermione went in or out the door, he watched and listened carefully. No words were ever spoken, by her or a guard. In fact, he never heard or saw any sign of a guard. Whenever he tried to bring it up with Hermione, she would tell him that he was not ready, not healthy enough. So he worked harder to be ready and show her that it was time to make their plans.

Now she was standing behind him, manipulating his shoulder and making approving noises. Maybe it was time to bring up the topic. “Hermione,” he began.

“Hmmm… yes?” she asked, clearly distracted by whatever she was doing.

“I was wondering, do you have any sense of where this camp is?” he asked. “I mean, we’re in a building, which is unusual for a Death Eater camp. Have you ever seen outside?”

He could feel Hermione pulling away. It wasn’t just her hands, which dropped from his shoulder. It was something about her silence. Over the weeks, Cormac had discovered that Hermione’s silences were more important than her words. It was a funny contradiction. She knew so much and loved to share her knowledge. Everything she said was worth listening to. And yet he learned much more about her from those times when she chose not to speak.

He turned slowly, wanting to give her time to compose herself. She didn’t like to talk about the camp, for whatever reason, and he couldn’t bring himself to force her. He relied on her to be his anchor, the steady centre of his world. He couldn’t risk driving her away.

“I’ve seen through windows. We’re in a small village.” When she spoke, she wouldn’t meet his eyes, but her voice was firm. “There were no children in the streets, just witches and wizards. I think the whole place is Death Eaters, every building.”

Cormac cursed. This was nothing like the encampments he’d come across before. Escaping from an entire town? It wasn’t going to be easy.

“We’re near the edge of town,” Hermione continued. “Close to trees. I think we might be in the north, because the forest looks like the one near Hogwarts. Y’know, lots of pine trees. But I didn’t see enough to be sure.”

“Could you try to get another look?” he asked. She glanced up at him and nodded. “Thank you. I’ll be well enough to run soon, thanks to your exercises, so we need to start making plans.”

“If you say so,” Hermione agreed with a twisted smile. “But right now, I think you should start having a bath. You’re a bit ripe from all my exercises. Not to mention the ones you’ve been doing on your own.” 

He smiled a little sheepishly. “I was going to tell you about that. When I was ready.”

“Ready to show off,” she teased, walking around him to pick up the bundle of clean clothes she’d left by the door. “Men. You’re all just silly boys when you get down to it,” she said, tossing the clothes in his direction. “Now strip and clean yourself up.” She turned to the basin of wash water on the bedside table.

Cormac had been uncomfortable the first time Hermione had changed his clothes, but now he struggled out of his grimy shirt and dropped it on the ground without a moment's thought. Hermione was waiting with a damp cloth, which she handed over without comment. He had found it comforting to be washed the first couple of times she did it, but after that it began to feel awkward. Now Cormac insisted on taking care of his own bathing as much as possible. Hermione appeared to find his small show of independence amusing, but she was willing to humour him.

Hermione seemed to understand; she patted his shoulder and then hooked a foot around the three-legged stool, dragging it away from the bed. After stooping to collect the dirty bed linens, she made a show of sitting with her back to him.

Cormac took this as his cue to drop his trousers and pick up the clean pair. As he did so, a set of dark blue cotton shorts fell to the floor. He smiled. No wonder Hermione had made such a production of turning her back. Quickly, he wiped down his legs, and then pulled down the grey shorts he'd been wearing since he first woke. A fast wash left his skin tingling in the cool air of the cell. As he tugged up the clean shorts, he had a sudden vision of Hermione turning as he washed his groin. It was enough to make his heart beat faster and he scrambled to put on the green trousers before she could turn around and see his body's reaction pushing against the shorts.

He sat heavily on the bed and reached for the clean t-shirt. He didn't want to put it on before Hermione changed his bandage, but he also didn't want her turning around quite yet. She was perched on the wooden stool, slowly folding the soiled bed clothes. The first time Cormac had watched her doing this, he'd wondered why anyone would fold linens that were destined for the laundry. It had seemed a tad uptight, even for Gryffindor's most obsessive student. Later than night, he had realized it was her polite way of letting him take as much time as he needed to bathe.

Right now, she was smoothing the partially folded pillow case through her fingers, firming the crease before starting on the next fold. Hermione could spend several minutes folding a sheet, when she put her mind to it. It made Cormac smile, her careful, considerate behaviour. She was so determined not to make her purpose obvious that it only stood out even more. He was grateful for her actions, for the small measure of dignity they allowed him. It made him wonder if she had been this kind during their time at Hogwarts, and if he would have even noticed it back then. Kindness hadn't been on the list of reasons why he had asked her to Slughorn's party; it had never been a quality he'd looked for in a girl. Now, though, he thought it was her best feature.

Cormac shifted on the bed, a new vision of Hermione filling his mind: her arms around him, stroking his hair the way his mother used to when he was just a lad. Tears stung at his eyes as grief and longing mixed painfully in his chest. He scrubbed at his eyes and then focused on watching Hermione finish her routine with the pillow case. She made a final fold, creating a perfect square of fabric, which she placed on top of the sheets. Cormac waited until she had given the pile of fabric a small pat before clearing his throat.

"Um… could you give me a hand with the bandage?" he asked. She turned immediately, smiling, and walked over to the bed. With quick, efficient movements, she detached and removed the bandages. Not for the first time, Cormac was impressed by her skill.

"Did you have to do a lot of this," he asked, "while you were on the run?"

"Hmmm?" Hermione was focused on teasing the bandage away from the wound. "This is healing well," she said, brushing her fingers over the pink skin around the scab. "I'm going to leave it uncovered, but I'll leave you a bandage in case there's any tearing."

As she leaned down to pick up his discarded clothing, Cormac reached over and grabbed her hand. She froze almost instantly, although he did feel her hand tug against his for a moment, as though she were trying to pull away. Her eyes went wide as she stared at his hand. There was something in her reaction that made him drop her hand.

"Sorry, just, uh…" he was almost stammering. "I mean, I was hoping you could help me wash my back before I put my shirt on."

Hermione blinked rapidly, and her eyes darted around the room, landing everywhere but on him. He wondered if the Death Eater guards had some rule about touching, but then remembered that Hermione had said that no one could see inside the cell. Whatever the problem was, it wasn't about their captors. Carefully, he reached past her and lifted the wash rag from the basin.

"My shoulder might be getting better, but I still can't really get at my back." He offered the rag to Hermione, hoping to distract her from whatever had spooked her.

She stared blankly at the wash cloth and then took a deep breath. "Of course. A contortionist would have a hard time washing their own back, let alone someone with an injured shoulder. Here," she gently pushed at his uninjured side, "turn a bit and I'll get you cleaned up."

“Thank you,” he turned his back to her. “I’m serious about planning an escape, you know.”

“I know.”

“Will you help me?” he asked, trying to keep his voice level.

Hermione stroked the rag up and down his back in silence for a long time. Finally she said “I will.”


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

**_Present Day_ **

Hermione listened for the click of the door closing behind her before moving. Carefully balancing the tray and the bundle of soiled linens, she made her way up the stairs.

The lights in the kitchen were a shock to her eyes after hours in the basement. Wincing slightly at the brightness, she put the tray down on the counter and tossed the sheets into the laundry hamper. It was too late to contemplate doing the washing up. Instead, she picked her wand up off the table and charmed the kettle to fill and heat itself.

While her tea steeped, she found herself staring out the window and thinking about Cormac's request. What had she been thinking, agreeing to his notions of escape? Was it really the best course of action? He seemed to be improving and part of that was due to the sense of purpose that he drew from planning their ‘escape.' Perhaps it would be a valuable step in his healing process.

On the other hand, if it failed, it could not only undo all the work they'd been doing but set him back even further. It depended entirely on Cormac's underlying psychological needs. Some days she felt that her work was very similar to how Bill described the process of curse breaking: neutralizing one set of spells just exposed another danger underneath. Until she knew every layer of Cormac, down to the core, she risked triggering hidden traps.

Hermione sighed as she picked up the tea tray. It was time to pull out her notes and start at the beginning.

* * *

**_May 1997_ **

The Battle of Hogwarts had been won. The war was over and everything could go back to normal. Or something like that. Hermione didn't know and frankly, she didn't much care.

She'd survived; Ron had survived. Harry had died, but then he managed to survive anyway. Neville was a hero. And so many people had died that Hermione couldn't keep them all straight in her head. That never happened. She could recite every potion that used costmary leaves – fresh, dried, or powdered (six, eight, and three brews, respectively) – but she couldn't remember the names of the fallen, or how they died. It was odd.

The funerals had begun twelve days ago. Many families took their loved ones away to be buried at home, but it was decided that the space between Dumbledore's tomb and the forest would be made available to any who wished for their parent, or child, or wife, or husband to be buried by the Headmaster.

The first memorial was Fred Weasley's. Hermione and Harry had stood by in silence as Ron's family collapsed in on itself. After that day, she had chosen to watch the services from a distance. Unclaimed victims of the Death Eater camp outside of Hogsmeade were laid to rest by the lake, including Donaghan Tremlett, his wife, and Cormac McLaggen's mother. The Creevey family came to bury Colin in "his favourite place in the world" according to his mother. Andromeda Tonks stood dry eyed, holding baby Teddy, as her husband, daughter, and son-in-law were laid in the earth. Harry, ever self-sacrificing, sat and suffered with each family. Hermione couldn't image how he managed it.

Today's funeral was different from the rest. There were few mourners standing by the lake. A handful of faculty gathered around Headmistress McGonagall. A witch in mourning robes and a thick veil kept silent vigil a few metres away. Hermione stood beside Harry as he spoke of his least favourite professor's bravery and sacrifice. When he finished the eulogy, Harry turned to face Snape's gravestone.

"I'm sorry I never thanked you," he said, his voice tight. "I'm sorry I hated you all those years. I wish I could have asked you about my mother." He took a deep breath. "I'm so sorry for everything you had to do."

He dashed a hard across his eyes, and then pointed his wand at the stone. A rush of magic moved through the air and green stalks erupted from the ground behind the grave. Within seconds, the plants had grown to full maturity and bloomed – half a dozen varieties of lilies, a rainbow of colour. Harry's smile was twisted as he turned and began to walk back to the castle.

"That was beautiful, Harry," Hermione said as she followed him.

"Thanks," he said shortly. "It was mostly Neville – he charmed the bulbs and such."

"The idea was beautiful." Hermione refrained from calling him an idiot, but only just. "From what little you've told me of Snape's past, I think it's a good gesture."

Harry snorted. "Too little, too late. My trademark, I'd say. Finding the right thing to do after the damage is done," he said angrily. "And no, Hermione, I do not want to _talk about it_."

He lengthened his stride until Hermione had to trot to keep up with him. The uneven ground beneath their feet wasn't helpful and within a few paces, she caught her foot and tripped. Harry, ever considerate, caught her around the waist as she tumbled forward. She gasped as a bolt of disgust ran through her and pulled away from him as soon as she found her balance.

"On the topic of things we're not talking about – what's going on with you?" Harry asked as he stepped away from her. "You're jumpy as Crookshanks that time he got into the catmint."

She brushed her hair from her face, avoiding his gaze. "After the past month, I think I have the right to be ‘jumpy.'"

"I suppose. But you've got to sit still at some point. If you don't let Molly hug and coddle you soon, I think she's going to explode with frustration," Harry's smile was genuine. "And she's not the only one worried about you."

Hermione felt an unexpected warmth bloom in her chest. Her boys weren't terribly good at expressing their feelings, so it made moments like this all the more precious. "I know, Harry. Don't worry, I'll let the Daily Prophet know I'm doing fine."

Harry's surprised laughter rang out across the war-torn grounds.

* * *

**_Present Day_ **

Hermione opened the clothes dryer and pulled out the clean sheets for Cormac's bed. Folding them neatly, she mentally ran through the checklist she'd prepared for the "escape" from her house. The challenge was to make it convincing enough that he would receive the positive emotional reinforcement of a successful undertaking while she retained control of the whole process.

The first consideration was where they should escape to. It wasn't as if she could let him apparate to Hogwarts or Diagon Alley. In fact, they couldn't go anywhere where there was a chance of Cormac interacting with other witches and wizards. At first, the Muggle world seemed like an option, but there was the small problem of how Muggles plastered the date on everything in sight. That wouldn't work.

Then she remembered that Ron was supposed to be watching Shell Cottage for Bill and Fleur. Bill had taken a contract in Lyon so that they could raise Victoire in France for a year. Ron had agreed to stay at their house while they were gone, but within two months of their departure, he'd all but moved into Katie Bell's flat. As far as Hermione knew, they spent the occasional weekend at Shell Cottage, but that was it.

She tossed floo powder into the grate and stuck her head through to Katie's. Ron was quick to agree to her using the cottage for a month or two while she finished up the work she was doing. Ron promised to send his owl over with the keys and agreed to her request for uninterrupted solitude. Then he suggested that she change the sheets in the master bedroom before using the bed. Hermione rolled her eyes and pulled her head from the flames.

With the question of where taken care of, Hermione turned her mind to how. She and Cormac were now discussing the escape every time she went downstairs. His plans were almost complete, and her plans for how to make them happen were coming together. She pulled his change of clothing from the dryer and realized that before the escape, she would have to find Cormac something new to wear. The sleep trousers and tee shirt in her hand were only a few wearings away from the bin. Another line to add to the checklist.

* * *

**_June 1997_ **

Hermione stepped out of Lavender's room and took a deep breath. She had known that visiting her housemate would be difficult. Lavender had barely survived Greyback's savage attack. The wounds he had inflicted were so deep that the Healers had to cast charms on them every four hours to keep them closed. The scarring was going to be horrific, Hermione knew. She couldn't image how a vain girl like Lavender could handle that prospect.

Still, she felt obliged to visit. She had been to see every one of her former classmates who had ended up in St. Mungo's. Ernie McMillan, whose left hand had been crushed beyond magical repair. Penelope Clearwater, with her beautiful hair burned away by a Dark curse that was slowly being leached from her skin. Dozens of others with injuries small or large.

Lavender's room was in the wing reserved for the most serious cases, where Healers were in and out of the rooms constantly. Two doors down, a wizard was being treated for a mental breakdown after being controlled by Dolohov's Imperius spell for almost fourteen months. Across the hall from him, Cormac McLaggen drifted in and out of some sort of coma.

Cormac had been one of the first people Hermione had visited when she began her trips to St Mungo's. He had been in the hospital for three weeks at that point and was only conscious for short periods. The rescue workers who had pulled him from under the wreckage of North Tower reported that he hadn't regained consciousness once, even though his injuries were extreme. He had over a dozen broken bones as well as internal injuries. Fortunately, in a magical hospital those were easily treated.

When the healing process was complete, though, Cormac still failed to properly wake up. Hermione was fascinated by the work being done by the medi-witch in charge of Cormac's care. She had spoken to the woman numerous times about what was involved in his treatment and what factors might be affecting his recovery.

Healer Winthrop had confided in her one day that "Sometimes they just give up and stop fighting. You've heard someone say that they have nothing to live for?" Hermione had nodded. "Well, for some patients, that appears to be what happens. We can heal their body, but if they decide on some level that they have nothing to live for, there's nothing we can do."

Hermione hadn't known what to say to that. The idea of just giving up and dying was incomprehensible to her. She had spent so many years watching Harry refuse to give up, under even the worst circumstances, to understand it. Merlin's beard, she had spent too much energy making _sure_ that Harry didn't give up to accept that someone could just lie there and let themselves die. Cormac might have been an ass when they were in school together, but he was better than that.

Today, the door to his room was open. Hermione decided to see if Healer Winthrop was in with him. As she approached the door, she slowed her steps. There were two voices coming from the room, and one was low and rough, like that of a man who had just woken from sleep.

"How long have I been in here?"

"Five and a half weeks," Healer Winthrop's voice was quiet, soothing.

"What! Five and…" the voice broke off into coughing. There was the sound of water being poured from a pitcher and the coughing subsided.

"Would you like some more?"

"No, no." Cormac's voice was still raw, but impatience bled through. "Are my parents here? Have you found my mother? Has someone gone to Aunt Susan, helped Da?"

There was a long pause and Hermione could hear more water being poured. Finally Healer Winthrop spoke. "I'm sorry, Cormac. I don't know where your father is. Your mother was found in the Hogsmeade camp. She was already gone. She's buried at Hogwarts."

The silence from the room was almost painful, and then Hermione heard glass smashing. She was considering going into the room to see what had happened when she was stopped in her tracks by the sound of sobbing. After a moment, her curiosity drove her to the door. The sight of Cormac sobbing and calling for his Ma met her eyes. Healer Winthrop caught sight of her and waved her away. Hermione stepped back and quietly pulled the door closed.

She could remember his mother's funeral. At the time, it hadn't seemed strange that Mary McLaggen had been with no one in attendance – so many were. She hadn't even thought to ask where Cormac and his father were. In fact, she had only partially paid attention to the funeral. It had been the second of three burials on a chilly, damp Thursday, and she had been numb to grief by that point. Hermione felt a wave of guilt overwhelm her sympathy for Cormac's loss. This was yet another time she had behaved poorly towards him, even if it was by omission rather than action.

She sank into one of visitor's chairs that dotted the hallway. The sound of Cormac's grief was muffled by the door, a dull, rhythmic keen of mourning and misery. It reminded her of what Healer Winthrop had said about patients who gave up on life. If Cormac hadn't had the fight in him to heal before, what was going to happen to him now? Hermione knew firsthand the pain of not having parents. Hers might be alive, but for all intents and purposes, they were dead to her.

The idea, when it came to her, was both blindingly obvious and hopelessly ambitious. She was going to bring Cormac's father to him. Then Cormac would have someone to live for and would get better. Of course, the part where Hermione knew next to nothing about Cormac's family or where his father might be was a small flaw in the plan. But she was the smartest witch of her generation. How hard could it be?

* * *

**_Present Day_ **

"How are you feeling tonight?" Hermione asked as she set out Cormac's dinner. He was looking well, she thought to herself. Much less tired, for one thing, and the exercises he did during the day had brought colour back to his cheeks.

"Decent," Cormac said as he came to sit by the bedside table. "I'm not having nightmares anymore, so I sleep better."

"That's good." She turned to the bed, beginning her evening routine of changing the linens.

"I am having really strange dreams, though. I wonder if it's something in that sleeping potion they give me."

Hermione smiled to herself. The sleeping potion was nothing more than valerian, chamomile, and honey. Nothing hallucinogenic. Strange dreams were a sign of Cormac's mind working through its confusion. She asked "What sort of dreams?"

"Well, a couple nights ago, I dreamt I was at work at the Ministry, but it wasn't like my actual job. Or really like the Ministry. I was working up in broom charm review, rather than broom testing. I guess it was where I had wanted to go someday, if the War hadn't happened. I had my own office, and an assistant who called me Mr. McLaggen. It was just funny."

"Funny?" she asked, smoothing the blanket into place.

"Well, because I was dreaming of something I'd always wished for. But it felt very real. My assistant's name was Dianthe. She didn't tell me, I just knew it somehow."

"So you're dreaming of your wishes come true?" Hermione turned and sat on the bed so she could watch him.

"Not always," he said, frowning. "Last night I dreamt that my Da was living with me in Uncle Tiberius' flat. He did, for a while, before I had to…" he stopped and took a bite of his sandwich.

"Had to put him in hospital?" she finished.

"Yeah," he said after a moment. "But it wasn't from that time. The flat looked different, and Da looked… well, he looked wretched. He was in rough shape, worse than before. He had given up on finding Ma, kept saying she was dead and what was the point of all of it. I guess it was a nightmare, the slow, awful kind."

"I'm sorry, Cormac. That sounds really awful," Hermione stood from the bed. "I hope you sleep better tonight."

"Thanks. Me, too." He finished the last bite of his sandwich and stood. "I hope there's clothes in that bundle," he said, his voice lighter. "I did extra exercises today and I could use a fresh shirt."

Hermione smiled, pleased at his good cheer. "Fresh clothes and a treat, actually."

"A treat?"

"I figured you might want to wash your hair. There's a towel and a comb in there, and extra soap."

Cormac laughed. "Only a girl would think that's a treat!" He held his hands up at her glare. "Not that I'm not grateful. I'm sure I look like a bird's nest."

Hermione rolled her eyes. He wasn't far off – his greasy blond-brown curls were beginning to mat and stick up in tufts. It was a far cry from how he'd looked at Hogwarts, as though he fixed his appearance in every mirror. She had to admit she liked him better disheveled. There was a certain helpless charm to his disarray.

She was pulled from her thoughts by the sight of Cormac stripping off his shirt. Quickly, she turned and sat facing the wall. As was her habit, she carefully folded the bed sheets and pillow case, trying not to picture what was happening behind her. The sound of rustling fabric stopped and she heard water splashing in the basin. Cormac was washing himself. She focused on creating crisp folds to block out the memories of his long muscled body. Images of him – his chest, his thighs, his groin – flashed in her head. She had cleaned him herself those first few days and she'd taken her time with it Cormac was the first man she'd ever seen naked who wasn't a patient. Except that he was a patient and she ought to remember that, rather than recalling how her body had reacted to the sight of him. Even now, just hearing him bathe was enough to make her breasts tighten and her breath quicken.

The sounds of dry cloth on skin brought her back to herself. He was dressing. She waited until the noise stopped before turning around. It was too soon, though. He was still shirtless as he sat on the bed. Her movement drew his attention and he gestured to the basin.

"I'm not sure how to go about this," he admitted. "Washing my hair like this."

Hermione smiled. "Need some help?"

"Please," he said. "I'll just make a mess of it otherwise."

"All right, then," she agreed, happy to feel useful. "This I know how to do. I would wash Harry and Ron's hair for them, when we…" she trailed off, not wanting to reveal too much.

Cormac accepted her reluctance, fortunately. "So what do I do?" he asked.

"You sit on the floor and lean back. I'll put the basin on the stool and get your hair wet that way. Then you can do the soap and I'll help you rinse it out."

He sat down where she indicated and followed her every direction. When it came time to use the soap, he cursed the tangles. Hermione smiled at his frustration, so much like a cranky child's.

"I can comb those out for you," she offered, surprising herself.

"Could you?" he sounded just as surprised. "My Ma used to do it when I was a lad. I'd get impatient and tear at it otherwise. One day, I took the shears to my hair – oh, was she mad!"

"Well, you're safe from shears here," Hermione joked, pleased to hear him talking about his mother without sadness. "But I don't want you tearing your hair out either. Let's rinse out the soap and I'll see what I can do."

She soaked his hair thoroughly, then handed him the towel. As he scrubbed as his head, she packed up the basin, soap, and dinner dishes. When she finished, she found him standing by the bed, towel around his neck but still shirtless. Her eyes traced the scars on his upper body from his months fighting Death Eaters, real and imagined. Heat rose in her cheeks as she noticed Cormac watching her stare at him.

"You're, uh, healing well," she said faintly.

"Thanks to you," he replied with a smile. He held out his hand, the comb lying on his palm. "How do you want to do this?"

"Um, well, why don't I sit here," Hermione walked around him and sat on the edge of the bed. "And you sit on the floor."

He carefully lowered himself onto the floor between her legs. Hermione waited until he had settled with his back against the mattress before reaching out with the comb.

"I'll start with the matted bits, so tell me if it hurts," she said. He nodded his agreement.

As she tilted his head from side to side to reach the tangles, Cormac sat still as a statue beneath her hands. He had hunched his shoulders so that they did not touch her thighs. She appreciated how he was taking such care not to touch her, and it made her feel able to take risks. Like today, washing and now combing his hair.

As she smoothed the comb through his tangle-free hair, an idea came to her. She slid her left hand from his hair to the towel on his shoulder. Then she discarded the comb and returned her right hand to his hair, using her fingers to rake through his curls instead. Cormac seemed to sit straighter, and his hands reached up to grip the ends of towel.

Hermione took a deep breath and moved her hand from the towel to Cormac's neck. She began to gently massage the muscles there. Paradoxically, his neck seemed to become more tense under her fingers, but after a minute, the muscles relaxed and he began to tilt his head to give her better access. She could feel his right shoulder pressing against her leg. As the pressure on her thigh increased, she gave his hair a little tug and he pulled away. She smoothed her hand over his hair again, thanking him.

Her left hand worked on the muscles at the base of his neck. He groaned as she dug her thumb into a particularly tight knot, and shifted his body. This brought him back into contact with her leg, and he began to pull away. Before he could completely straighten, Hermione snagged one of his curls and pulled. He stilled. She smoothed the curl back into place and he relaxed against her, his right shoulder just brushing her thigh.

As they sat in silence, Hermione felt a wave of affections towards Cormac. He was always so careful of her physical space, so respectful. She could only hope he would be so understanding when this was all over.

* * *

**_Spring 2002_ **

Hermione sank into the beige couch. She wrinkled her nose as she looked around the room. Its pastoral paintings and neutral colour scheme reminded her of her parents' reception room. And she knew that getting back out of the couch was going involve some undignified heaving. She hated the place already, and the mental health medi-witch hadn't even shown up.

When she was a mental healer, she told herself, she would have sensible chairs that didn't make the patients feel like children sitting on adult furniture. And she would have colour on her walls, and real windows to the outdoors, rather than cheap paintings. Of course, that was if they let her into the training program in the first place.

She'd made it through the general healers courses, but the mental healing program was three years of specialized training and was notoriously hard to get into. Hermione had passed the entrance exam with top marks. Now all that stood between her and her dream was an evaluation session to make sure she was mentally healthy enough to be a mental healer. The humour was not lost on her, although sitting in this miserably bland little room was dulling her amusement.

By the time Healer Thorndike swept into the room, five minutes late, Hermione was starting to fidget. She stilled herself immediately, not wanting to exhibit nervous behaviour. Thorndike barely seemed to notice her presence, though, as he shoved a stack of parchments across his desk to make room for the stack of books he was carrying. He then came around the desk and rooted through the papers, ignoring Hermione all the while.

She was about to cough or clear her throat to get his attention when he turned and stared down at her.

"So you're after my job, then?" he asked.

Hermione jumped slightly at the sound of his voice. It was a low rumble, more suitable for someone like Hagrid than the beanpole of a man standing in front of her.

"Well?" he asked, stepping towards her and flinging himself into the chair across from the couch.

Hermione hesitated. What was the right answer? Yes, she wanted his job. Or something like it. "I, uh, I want…"

"Come along, girl," Thorndike leaned forwards, waving a roll of parchment in her direction. "If you didn't want my job, you wouldn't be here. Or more to the point, you shouldn't be here. So let's be honest. You want my job. That's fine by me, as long as you're willing to admit it. Can't have any secrets here, you know." And then he winked. It startled her so much she laughed. The Healer grinned at her. "That's better. Let's go again. You're after my job?"

"Yes, I am," Hermione announced.

"Perfect. From now on in, I want you to tell me the truth, even on the hard questions. This room is spelled with every anti-eavesdropping charm you can think of. Even had that Weasley boy in to consult. And I'm the soul of discretion. Swore an oath, you know." He waved his right hand so Hermione could see the charmed tattoo that all healers took to bind them to keep their patient's secrets. "Today we're going to talk about your past. If that goes well, we can talk about your future. Any questions?"

"No questions," Hermione said, shaking her head. She knew that if she "passed" this session, they would begin to plan her training course. "I'm ready."

"Right, then. Let's start with an easy one. Your parents."

She grimaced. Hardly an easy start. Her parents were still in Australia, convinced they'd never had a daughter, and Healer Thorndike knew it. Most of the Wizarding world had heard of "Hermione's sacrifice" from the Daily Prophet and other tabloids.

"How do you feel about cutting them out of your life?"

After the war, she had thought long and hard about repairing her parents' memories but chose not to. It wasn't like the Death Eaters had all laid down their wands after Voldemort fell. There had been attacks in the weeks and months following the Battle. Everyone knew there was no guarantee that there wouldn't be reprisals against members of the Order. Three years had passed since the Battle of Hogwarts and Harry still travelled with a protective detail. She knew they were safe where they were, and that mattered more to her than them being where she was.

"I think it was the right decision. Being practically orphaned was – and is – safer. It was really hard at first, but it gets easier," she replied carefully.

"Really?" The Healer's expression was skeptical.

_No, not really_ , Hermione thought angrily. She had destroyed her parents' minds and couldn't bring herself to fix them and face their questions. Every additional month that she put it off, the guilt hardened inside of her until she realized she would never undo what she had done. Now she was accustomed to their absence and enjoyed the independence of living without family obligations. She doubted that that attitude would sit well with the Healer, though.

"No," she began, reaching for the answer she used with Ron and Harry, "but I want them to be safe and happy more than I want them here. And I see how Muggleborns who fully embrace the Wizarding lifestyle are cut off from their families. At least this way, they don't miss me."

"So you take on all the hurt, to save them pain? That's very selfless, Hermione, but not the most emotionally healthy attitude." Hermione ducked her head, trying furiously to think of an answer to offset his criticism. Before she could speak, he continued, "Still, I imagine that the events of your teenage years have engrained in you the habit of shouldering others' burdens. It's something you should consider working on with a mental healer." He made a quick note on his scroll. "Right, let's move on to my work-related questions. It's been mentioned that you are not comfortable with the hands-on element of healing."

Shit. Her mind froze. She had no idea how to respond; she hadn't even realized that anyone had noticed. 

"So from your panicked expression, I'm going to assume these reports are true. What's going on there?" His voice was kind.

For a long moment, she weighed the chances of bluffing through the answer. She'd fooled him about her parents, why not about this? But a closer look at Healer Thorndike's horsey face, all sympathetic curiosity, changed her mind. She'd never told anyone what had happened, but this ugly, kind man, she could tell him.

"It was the Battle. At Hogwarts," she began. The story poured out of her like black bile.

* * *

The Battle raged for hours. She survived the Fiendfyre, stood vigil for the dead, and saw her best friend dead in Hagrid's arms. Then the whole thing with the Hat and the Sword and the snake happened, and the fighting began again. She became separated from Ron in the confusion and ended up dueling with a Death Eater in an alcove near the Great Hall.

She managed to disarm the man, but before she could use a stunner, the wizard rushed her. Hermione found herself wrapped tightly in his arms, the sour smell of his body surrounding her. Her struggles accomplished nothing – he was tall and strong – and he pried her wand from her fingers. As he dragged her along the corridor, she writhed and kicked against him, screaming for help, trying to attract attention.

It must have worked, because she heard a cry of " _Petrificus Totalus_ " and the rush of magic enveloping her captor. Still trapped in the Death Eater's arms, she crashed to the floor with him. Fortunately, the spell had come from one side, or else she would have landed face-first. As it was, Hermione lay on her side, bound by spell-frozen limbs. Again she struggled, but his grip on her was too tight, and his fingers were latched onto her left wrist. She lay in panic, the Death Eater's hot breath panting against her scalp, unable to form an escape plan.

After what seemed like an hour, but was probably minutes, she realized that her right arm was free from the elbow down. It was pinned beneath their bodies, but that could be remedied. Several violent kicks against the floor turned Hermione and her captor until he was on his back and she was draped across his front. The new position shifted their robes and Hermione found that she could twist her right arm towards the hand that held her wand. One painful contortion later and she had her wand.

She quickly cast _stupefy_ and _finite incantatum_ on her captor, rolling from his grasp the instant his arms relaxed. After using binding spell, she shoved him deep into the alcove. Then she ran to the Great Hall, where she found her friends dueling with Bellatrix Lestrange.

* * *

"I survived the Battle, sure. I walked about without a single scar." She laughed bitterly. "On the outside. All my damage is all on the inside. I'm not good with being touched. I don't like being too close to people."

Healer Thorndike nodded, a sad smile on his face. "What happened to you was terrible, Hermione. I'm very impressed that even though you have a problem with physical closeness, you decided to go into healing. You're not letting this situation control your life."

Hermione smiled weakly at his approval. He didn't know how wrong he was. The "situation" had controlled her life for the past three years. She had broken up with Ron because she couldn't bear his touch. Her relationship with the Weasley family had become awkward because of their touchy, huggy habits. She still had Harry, but that was only because he was as uncomfortable with physical affection as she was, having so little experience with it.

"I'm sure that with the help of a good mental healer," Thorndike continued, "you will be able to conquer this fear of touch altogether. I do hope that you'll find someone to talk to about it."

"Of course," Hermione replied automatically.

"This leads nicely to our next question," he said, leaning back. "What inspired your choice to go into mental healing? Was it related to your struggle with intimacy?"

"Actually, it was something that happened right after the War," Hermione said. This was comfortable ground, she had explained the story of Cormac McLaggen a hundred times. As she recited the tale, she watched the Healer's reactions. They seemed positive, and when she finished, he sat forward in his chair.

"And you found his father?" he asked, obviously caught up in the tale.

"Yes, I went to Scotland, found his aunt and his father. I undid the memory charms that Cormac had used and brought Iain back to London."

"Wonderful!"

Hermione smiled back at him, but then sighed. "Only for a while. A year ago, Iain McLaggen killed himself," she said sadly. "He never recovered from the depression and paranoia that he suffered during the War."

"What a shame." Thorndike's long face was grave. "We have so many cases of people who are still afflicted by the horrors of the War. It's a great injustice that we don't do more for these poor witches and wizards. Mr McLaggen is another victim of Wizarding Society's desire to sweep the War under the rug and forget it happened."

"So is Cormac," Hermione said. "After his father's death, he started acting strangely. It turned out he was seeing and hearing things. He came into St. Mungo's for treatment – that's when I learned about his father. He's been in and out of the mental healing ward ever since."

"And it's to help people like Cormac, that's why you want to do this?" Healer Thorndike asked.

She nodded, but thought _No, I'm going to_ cure _people like Cormac, not just help them_.

Harry had teased her about her plans, saying that she was setting herself up on a new quest to save the world. He meant it as a joke, but he was right. She needed this: something to distract her from the fact that she used to have purpose but now all she had were memories and nightmares.


	4. Chapter 4

**_Present Day_ **

Hermione carefully climbed down the basement stairs, balancing a food tray and a basin of water. She found herself smiling as she made her way down. The hours she spent in her basement were her favourite part of the day. Cormac, who had been so damaged and dangerous, had become someone she wanted to be around. His jagged edges had been worn away. When she reached the bottom, she whispered the spell to release the door latch. Turning, she pushed the door open with her hip and backed into Cormac's room.

"Dinner's ready!" she said cheerfully, kicking the door closed behind her.

Cormac grunted in acknowledgment. He was in the corner of the room doing press-ups, wearing nothing but his shorts. She watched the muscles in his back bunch and flex for a moment before giving herself a mental smack and turning away.

It was good that he was feeling better, being more active, she reminded herself. It seemed to be helping his sleep and his emotional state. Cormac's nightmares seemed to have passed, replaced by dreams of his life after the war. He was talking openly about his mother, processing his grief in a healthy manner. His mind was healing and reintegrating.

She put the wash basin down on the bed and then turned to the bedside table. She took her time setting out his dinner, giving him time to clean up and pull on his shirt and pajama bottoms. Hermione liked the fact that he always took care to be properly dressed when she came in. As she refilled the oil lamp and trimmed the wick, the sounds of splashing water came from behind her.

"How are you feeling today?" she asked over her shoulder.

"Good," he answered. "My shoulder barely aches."

"That's good news. You're healing well."

"Yeah," he agreed. "And I'm getting my energy back. I think we should start talking seriously about getting out of here. I need to know more about what's outside that door."

Hermione closed her eyes. She had decided to go along with the escape plan but she couldn't help but worry that when he "escaped" he might find out what was going on. Unfortunately, his escape plans had filled him with sense of purpose that might be contributing to his recovery. She didn't want to risk a setback by thwarting his plans.

"I'll tell you what I know," she answered, keeping her back to him.

"Any idea where my wand is?" Water splashed in the basin.

"Locked up," she said truthfully.

"How does the door work here? The guard opens the door when you knock?"

Hermione thought for a moment. A guard at the door would be hard to fake. Her illusions wouldn't stand up to a fist fight. "No, the door is charmed to open at my knock," she said. "But there is a guard at the top of the stairs."

"Does he have a wand?"

"Yes."

"So we could take his wand and…" The rest of the sentence was muffled by Cormac pulling his shirt over his head. "No, that wouldn't work." He joined Hermione at the bedside table. "The guard would see us coming up the stairs."

"What if…" Hermione trailed off, trying to decide if the idea made any sense.

"What if what?" Cormac asked.

"Well, what if I could get him to drink your sleeping potion?"

"That would be great, but how are you going to get him to do that?" He pulled over the stool and began to eat his dinner.

"I can offer to bring him something from the kitchen when I come in the evenings. A cup of tea, juice, something," she suggested. "After a few days, he'll probably agree. I'll put the drugged water in the drink. You know how fast it can work. He'll be asleep by the time we come out."

Cormac grinned up at her. "That would be great. Then we can sneak up and grab it, and apparate out from right under their noses." He paused, fork halfway to his mouth. "No one's mentioned anti-apparition barriers, have they?"

"No, the only spells I've seen cast around this building are silencing spells. People can apparate in and out of this place whenever," she said honestly.

"Good, then we won't have to fight our way out." Cormac leaned an arm on the table. "I'm feeling better, but with one wand between us, I don't like our odds. Now we just have to guess as to a safe destination."

"I have an idea of where we can go," Hermione said after a moment. "Ron's brother has a cottage in the lake country. We stayed there safely before the Battle of Hogwarts. I don't know if anyone's there, but if we're going to find members of the Order, it's a good place to start."

Cormac chewed thoughtfully. "A good place to start," he agreed. "If you can remember how to get us there, I think we should do it."

"I can get us there," she said confidently. "Sorry, no clean sheets tonight. Something wrong in the laundry, I think." Actually, she'd forgotten to run the wash through that morning.

"Doesn't matter," Cormac said. "I'm not having nightmares anymore – no more sweaty sheets."

"That's good to hear. I'm glad you're sleeping better."

"Yeah, it's good. I'm still having those strange dreams. Last night I dreamed that I was at my parents' house with my Aunt Susan. It was weird," he said thoughtfully. "We were packing. Ever have one of those horrible packing dreams where you can't fit everything into the box – there's always one more thing you have to pack? And you're in a hurry? I hate those dreams." He pushed himself up from the table and began to pace the room.

Hermione made understanding noises and started to tidy his dinner dishes. After a few minutes, Cormac settled on the bed. He sighed deeply. "It wasn't a nightmare, but it woke me up."

"My mum used to be into dream analysis. It's like Muggle Divination nonsense," she explained. "Anyway, I think packing means you have unfinished business holding you back."

Cormac laughed. "Bless, Hermione! I could have figured that out myself, and I only did one year of that Divination hogwash."

"You stopped taking Divination, too?" Hermione made her way over to the bed and picked up the washbasin.

"Of course," he looked up at her, puzzled. "Who in their right mind believes that stuff? I wanted to take Runes."

"Much better class," she agreed, reaching past him to grab the washcloth. Before she could pick it up, he stopped her with a touch on her wrist.

"What happened here?" he asked, his voice low.

Hermione pulled her arm back, feeling his fingers slide off her wrist. She looked down and saw the red mark on her inner arm. It was a scald mark. She'd reached across the steam from the kettle while preparing her morning tea. A quick charm had taken away the pain, but she had been in too much of a rush to heal the wound.

"Did the Death Eaters do that?" Cormac's voice was tight.

She shook her head. "No, it was me," she explained. "Being clumsy."

"Is that the truth?" he asked. "You'd tell me if they were hurting you?"

Hermione sat down on the bed, feeling her cheeks warm under his intense stare. She could see his hands move, as if he wanted to reach for her but he stopped himself. He was so careful with her, always respecting her boundaries.

"Yes, I'd tell if someone was hurting me." At his raised eyebrow, she insisted, "I would, Cormac."

"All right, fine," he said, holding up his hands and leaning back against the wall. "But no one healed you. It's time for us to get you out of here."

Hermione smiled at him and leaned against the wall beside him. "Get me out of here?" she teased. "What, you're not coming?"

He laughed and she smiled at the sight. "Only if you want me to come," he said.

She grinned up at him and it hit her. She wanted to escape with him.

Fall 2003

Hermione knocked on the door frame before leaning into Ron's office.

"Ready yet?"

He pushed himself up from his chair and made his way around the desk. "Just finished. Merlin, it was never-ending-memos day. I don't think I did anything but answer other people's questions all morning."

Hermione pulled a sympathetic face as she threaded her arm through his. "Sounds dreadfully boring."

"It was," Ron agreed. "So I won't talk about it, yeah? Let's talk about where I'm taking you for lunch."

She grinned up at him. "You're taking me to the new Japanese restaurant I found in Muggle London."

"Do I have to eat that she-she stuff?" Ron asked, making a face.

"No," she laughed. "There are lots of other choices. I, however, _will_ be eating sushi."

"Well, it's your birthday lunch. You can eat whatever icky stuff you like."

"Exactly," Hermione said, steering him towards the door. "You missed my twenty-fourth birthday party, so your punishment is to watch me eat raw fish. And eel." Ron pretended to vomit. "And you'll pay for it, too."

He opened his mouth to reply, but he was distracted by the noise coming from the corridor. It sounded like men shouting, and it was getting louder. Ron pulled his arm free from Hermione's and gestured for her to stand by the door. She slid her wand free from its sheath as she moved to put her back to the wall. Ron stood in front of her, wand at the ready. She met his eye and counted down from three.

On _one_ , Ron stepped into the corridor, only to be knocked down by a blur of curse magic. Another curse hit the door frame and bits of wood flew everywhere. The wizard who had cast the spell turned into the office and looked around wildly. Hermione barely registered Cormac McLaggen's appearance – panicked, bleeding from where a piece of the door jutted from his shoulder – before he grabbed her and pulled her against him. He wrapped his arm around her waist, pinning her left arm to his body and pulling her wand hand down. She froze at the contact, her stomach churning, her mind whirling.

Cormac was shouting curses, charring the corridor wall with scorch marks. He used his height and weight to push Hermione forward. She could feel the lump of wood in his wound poking at her back. Bile rose in her throat as he pressed against her, his fingers tight around her hand. She stumbled and he swore, kicking at her feet. He had stopped casting spells and was muttering to himself.

"They found me here... Da's right, they're everywhere… I bet you're one, too, aren't you." He tightened his grip on her. "Aren't you? Where's your Dark Mark?"

As Cormac continued to babble, they made their way into the corridor. Hermione looked around frantically and found Ron's face in the crowd. There were half a dozen Aurors standing between them, wands at the ready. Hermione closed her eyes, not wanting to watch their curses come at her.

The gathered Aurors cast stunning spells and Cormac's eyes rolled back in his head. He went limp, his arms dropping from Hermione, and fell backwards. Her relief at being freed from his grasp made her slow to react. She was still turning when she heard him hit the ground, his head bouncing of the stone floor with an unpleasant thud, his shoulder twisted unnaturally beneath him.

"Hermione!" Ron rushed up beside her. "Are you alright?" She nodded, still shaking a little. "I'm going to get you some whiskey." He disappeared into his office.

Aurors were circling the fallen wizard at her feet. One of them slid Cormac's arm from underneath him and pulled it straight. Hermione realized that the Auror was repairing a dislocated shoulder – she'd seen it at St. Mungo's.

"Miss Granger?" A middle-aged blond Auror stood up. "Are you going to be alright? We're going to take Mr McLaggen to the hospital. Would you like to see someone?"

Hermione shook her head. "I'm fine. What happened here?"

The dark-haired Auror who had reset Cormac's shoulder looked up. "McLaggen went mental. He started shouting that there were Death Eaters in the canteen. Ran out, cursing people as he went."

_Mental break_ , Hermione thought. "What's going to happen to him?" she asked. _He's lost himself completely, this time. He needs to be entirely remade_.

"St. Mungo's." The Auror gave her a look. "Mental healing ward, of course. It's not like it's his first time there." One of the other Aurors laughed.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Hermione said. Her mind began to race with possibilities. Cormac had been treated at St Mungo's multiple times, and he never seemed to improve. Every time, Hermione watched as he left the hospital, only partially healed. He needed a new treatment, something innovative. 

"What's not a good idea?" Ron asked, coming out of the office with two glasses of whiskey. He handed one to Hermione.

"Sending Cormac to St. Mungo's. He needs to be in a…" she paused, reaching for inspiration. "Muggle environment. You know, where there's nothing magic to set him off again while he's healing."

"You want to send him to a Muggle healer?" asked the blond Auror, incredulous.

Hermione nodded, taking a sip of her drink. "Well, you did just say he's been in St. Mungo's multiple times. He needs a different course of treatment. The last time he was in, the lead Healer suggested that Muggle healing, with supervision, might be the right way to go," she lied.

"I think we should let the healers at the mental ward make this kind of decision," said the younger wizard.

"I can Floo Healer Thorndike for you right now, if you like," Hermione offered.

"Thorndike? Head of the Mental Healers?"

Hermione nodded. "He's my mentor."

"Hermione's the top mental healing trainee in her year," Ron chimed in proudly. "Thorndike took her on specially."

The blond Auror looked impressed. "You'll clear this with Thorndike?"

"I'll take care of everything. There's a hospital in the town where his Muggle relatives live that should be suitable." Hermione cringed internally as she pictured the hospital where Iain McLaggen had been institutionalized. "I can take him to the facility," she offered.

The Aurors were beginning to soften. Ten more minutes of debate and subtle prodding, and they caved. The older wizard even helped her to strip off his outer robes so he looked like a Muggle. She pocketed his wand, promising to keep it safe, and levitated Cormac's stunned body to the apparition point. With promises of updates and reports, she wrapped an arm around Cormac's waist and apparated away. 

When the twisting sensation stopped, Hermione was standing in the sitting room of her parents' house. Staring at Cormac's floating body, she had a moment of doubt. Maybe she _should_ take him to the Muggle hospital. Or to St Mungo's.

Was this an impossible idea? Could she actually heal him? Then the image of bringing Cormac to St Mungo's and explaining her actions flashed in her mind. It could ruin her career if someone found out what she intended to do. No, she had to stick to her plan to heal him herself.

Besides, he was the reason she entered mental healing in the first place; it was only fitting that she should be the one to bring him back to health. And once she managed to cure him successfully, Hermione would be recognized as the greatest magical mental healer since Seele.

* * *

**_Present Day_ **

Hermione gave the owl a final treat and shooed it away. It winged off towards London, bound for the Auror offices at the Ministry. Every week, Hermione forged a report on Cormac's condition, supposedly from the Royal Edinburgh Hospital, and sent it off to Auror Parks. It kept him from asking questions about Cormac's whereabouts, and it allowed Hermione to track the success of her treatments. The magically miniaturized report was accompanied by a note explaining that she was taking four weeks' vacation and would forward the month's reports when she returned.

Hermione walked around the house one last time. It was escape day, and she wanted to make certain that everything was ready for the possibility of a prolonged absence. All the doors were closed, except the one joining the kitchen to the sitting room. Behind the doors, the curtains were all drawn. She didn't want Cormac wandering into the wrong room. The sitting room was prepared as an apparition point. When she'd decided to stay in the house after the War, she had cleared the room of furniture and hung heavy drapes so that she could apparate in and out of the house. It was less messy than the floo and convenient for those times when there wasn't a fireplace to be found. It was also conveniently neutral, so she wouldn't have to disguise it from Cormac.

Everything looked ready. She cast a series of illusions over her kitchen – making it look like an abandoned Wizard house, adding an ‘unconscious guard' at the top of the stairs. She nearly put her wand back into the pocket of her robes, but remembered at the last moment. Kneeling down, she placed it on the floor by the ‘guard' as though it had fallen from his hand.

She picked up the dinner tray and made her way downstairs slowly. Cormac was waiting for her when she came through the door. He took the tray from her and set it down.

"Did he take the tea?" he asked, hand on the door.

"Third day in a row," Hermione lied. "It'll take at least ten minutes, though. Eat your dinner."

"I can't." He didn't turn from the door. "I'm too..."

"You have to eat, Cormac," Hermione scolded. "For energy. And because we don't know when our next meal will be. We're going on the run and you know the rules: eat what you can, when you can…"

"… because who knows when you'll eat again." He finished the thought, turning away from the door. "I'm being stupid. I'll eat."

She pushed the stool towards him. "Good boy."

"I try," he smiled up at her as he sat. "What about you?"

"I eat before I come here. I'm fine." Hermione patted his shoulder. "Thanks for asking."

Cormac ate mechanically, his eyes on the door. Hermione sat on the bed and waited. His tension was infectious and she found herself getting tense. The sooner they made it through the "escape," the better. She began to count the seconds.

Four minutes after Cormac finished his meal, she stood up. "Let's go," she said.

Cormac doused the oil lamp. They stood for a moment, adjusting their eyes to the darkness. Hermione went to the door and knocked, unlocking it with a silent spell. She let Cormac lead the way out the door, but insisted on going up the stairs first. The illusion at the top of the stairs was intact. She knelt down and grabbed her wand, showing it to Cormac.

They slipped past the "guard" and into the sitting room. Cormac lifted his hand towards Hermione, but let it fall before he touched her. She smiled at the action and responded by sliding her arm around his waist. Cormac carefully draped his arm across her shoulders, and Hermione apparated them to the beach by Shell Cottage.

Cormac staggered as they landed in the soft sand. Hermione steadied him, and then turned them to face the house.

"Shell Cottage," she said. Cormac's arm tightened around her shoulders.

"We did it!" he said, his voice full of joy. "You did it! Thank you, Hermione." He sagged against her.

"We should get inside," she said.

She guided him to the house and into the spare bedroom. Hermione went into the main bedroom. She stripped off her sweaty clothes – even a fake escape was stressful – and wiped herself down. In the wardrobe, she found an old dress of Fleur's. It brushed the floor and was tight at the hips and chest, but it was clean. She made up her bed, and then took a set of sheets to Cormac. He wasn't in the room, so she made up his bed as well.

When she was done, she made her way downstairs and heard Cormac clattering around in the kitchen. She joined him there to find that he'd changed into some of Bill's casual clothes. On the table was a feast of preserved fruits and a bottle of wine. He had lit a fire to take the chill off the evening air. They sat at the table, eating brandied pears and drinking red wine.

Cormac barely spoke. The escape had apparently satisfied some need in him. Hermione could only hope he would be content to stay at the cottage for a while. She needed time to help him reintegrate his memories. At the moment, though, she needed to get him to bed. He was nodding off in his chair, drowsy from the excitement of the escape and the unfamiliar alcohol.

"Cormac," she said quietly, coming around the table to stand by him.

"Hmm…?"

"Time for bed, Cormac."

"Alright." he stood clumsily and allowed her to lead him to the spare room. She tucked him into the bed and left him to sleep. She made her way back to the kitchen and poured another glass of wine.

She had plans to make.

* * *

Cormac was dreaming of the time at work in the lab when he and Simon accidentally tripped an anti-theft charm on a broom. The damn thing had peppered them with curses and he'd ended up at St. Mungo's, chatting up a cute medi-witch trainee with spiky red hair. She laughed at his attempts to ask her for a drink because there were wee sets of flapping wings all over his face.

As he woke from the dream, Cormac found himself smiling at the memory. Daphne, that was her name. And Daphne _had_ let him buy her a drink, once the hex had been cured. They'd gone back to his flat and tumbled into his bed and… this was not his bed.

He was not in his bed or in his flat. He knew that this wasn't his flat. The walls were the wrong colour. The bed was the wrong size.

Cormac pushed himself up and looked out the window. There was sand, reeds, and water. He barely recognized it in the light of day, but then it began to come back to him. The past seven years. Da's suicide. The mental breakdowns. What he did at the Ministry. Hermione. The basement cell. Hermione. Escaping. Shell Cottage. Hermione. Lies. Endless lies.

He sat on the bed for a long time, trying to piece together what had happened. He tried to imagine a reason why she would betray him like this. He tried to push down the fury that kept rising in his throat. Finally, he got out of bed and dressed. He made his way downstairs, practicing his questions in his head.

He searched every room, but Hermione wasn't there. Instead, he found a note on the kitchen table explaining that she'd gone out to get food and information from the nearby village. And that she had taken the wand.

Something about that last line set him off again and he stormed out of the house to pace the sand dunes. The exertion wore him out more quickly than he'd expected, so he went back to the house and threw himself down on the sofa. He was laying there, arm across his eyes, when Hermione returned.

"I'm back," she called. "And I have breakfast."

Cormac sprang up from the couch and stalked into the kitchen. Hermione was standing at the table, pulling food from a string bag. She was wearing a pale blue dress that made her look lovely. It was tight in all the right places, but he forced himself to look at her face. He wanted to hit her.

"Are you alright, Cormac?" she asked, a concerned look on her face. Conniving bitch.

"No," he said bitterly. "I'm not all right."

"What's wrong?" she looked confused.

"What's wrong?" He couldn't believe her. "You locked me in a basement for, I don't know, weeks, and you're wondering what's wrong?"

Hermione swayed, her face going pale. She braced her hands against the table. Cormac pushed down a twinge of guilt, focusing on his anger.

"Were you ever going to tell me?" he asked. "Was I going to be your prisoner forever and ever?"

Hermione shook her head, but she didn't speak. Cormac's anger boiled over. He quickly crossed the room until he was standing right behind her. He grabbed her, one arm around her shoulders and one around her waist. As he expected, Hermione's entire body froze.

"I trusted you," he whispered in her ear. He could feel her starting to shake. "And you _betrayed_ me. You were lying to me the entire time. You _bitch_."

She trembled in his arms, and when she spoke, her voice was higher than normal.

"I was trying to help you. To heal you. You needed something more that what they could do at St Mungo's," she babbled. "You're getting better. It's working, you're healing."

"You were _healing_ me?" he asked, incredulous. "By locking me in a room? That's healing?"

"But it's working," Hermione said, her voice defensive. "It's working – you've mourned for your parents, you're reintegrating your memories."

"That's your excuse, then?" Cormac tightened his arms around her, but this time she didn't react. "I believed in you. You were my friend. I care…" he choked on the words. He had cared for her. He had _needed_ her. "And I was just an experiment."

Hermione turned her head and he could see tears on her cheek. "You weren't an experiment, Cormac. I wanted to help you. I've always wanted to help you. And I care about you, too."

"Fuck you, Hermione," Cormac said. "How can you expect me to believe a word you say?" Hermione drew a deep breath, but he cut her off before she spoke. "Never mind. I'm done here. I'm getting my wand and going. Where is it?"

"In the bag, with mine. I can get it for you."

"Don't bother," Cormac said, roughly shoving her away. She hit the table and crumpled. He dumped the contents of the string bag on the table and snatched up his wand. He took one last look at her tear-stained face before he apparated away.

* * *

Three days after escaping from Hermione, Cormac found himself pacing the rooms of his flat. He had come here directly from Shell Cottage, desperate for familiar settings. At first, it had worked. As he moved from room to room, his memories began to return. This flat was at the core of them.

He had moved back to London after his father's death, to Uncle Tiberius's flat. His uncle had deeded it to him so that Cormac would have somewhere to live that wasn't full of bad memories. Cormac had made a life, such as it was, in this flat. He'd repainted it in furious, vibrant colours and filled it lamps and pale furniture. It was bright and colourful, and it grated on his eyes after weeks in a white-walled cell.

Three days back and he was still afraid to go out into the world. But he couldn't stay in here a minute longer. Grabbing his favourite racing broom from the front hall, he stepped out on to the balcony. A quick hop and kick, and he was flying over the rooftops.

At first, he flew aimlessly. He smiled as he dove and swooped through the clouds. The feel of the wind in his hair was like a caress. After a while, he realized that he was flying steadily northward. He chuckled bitterly. She… a mental healer would say that his mind was tell him something. Well, he was ready to listen.

It was nearly dark when he touched down at Hogwarts. The castle towered over him. The last time he'd seen it, it had been a smoking ruin. Now the rebuilt towers sparkled with light from their windows. Cormac walked slowly towards Dumbledore's tomb. The rows of gravestones beyond the monument came as surprise to him. There were dozens.

He'd heard about the graveyard, but he had never seen it himself. Da had refused to take him to his mother's grave, and Cormac hadn't felt able to go on his own. Then Da had killed himself, asking in his will to be buried beside the wife he'd never visited. Cormac had been so furious with his father that he had refused to attend the burial.

Now, as he made his way through the headstones, he felt tears slipping down his cheeks. At the sight of his parents' graves, the silent tears became great gasping sobs. He sank to his knees and wept until he couldn't breathe. When the tears finally stopped, he lay down between the two headstones and let exhaustion settle over him. The anger he had been carrying for so many years was gone. His parents' absence was an ache inside of him, not the blinding pain he remembered. Cormac closed his eyes and reached for happy memories of his parents. 

He woke to the heat of the sun burning the back of his neck. Standing and stretching, he picked up his broom.

"Goodbye, Ma, Da," he said, touching each stone. "I have to get back to my life now. I'll come back next week. I miss you."

Hopping on his broom, he began to make plans. He had been away for months. The flat needed cleaning. Would his job still be there? Would he have to find new employment? Maybe it was time to leave the Ministry, anyway. Would he be facing charges for attacking Hermione at the Ministry?

Hermione. He tried to summon up the rage he had felt when he first realized her betrayal, but failed. What was he going to do about Hermione? He could have her arrested – she'd kidnapped him, the crazy bitch! But as he flew across the country, Cormac had to face facts. It had been days since she'd let him go and he hadn't done anything about her actions yet. He wasn't going to report her.

Hermione spent the first few weeks after Cormac left living in terror. She kept waiting for Aurors to arrive at Shell Cottage to take her to Azkaban, but they never did. Eventually, she knew she had to return to London – her month of research leave was almost up – and see what waited for her. Perhaps Cormac would be there, pointing an accusing finger: "There, arrest that crazy woman!" When she got home, though, nothing happened. Her house was dusty and the post had piled up inside the door, but other than that, nothing. She stood in her front hall, stunned by the realization that he wasn't coming after her.

She went back to her training at the hospital. The summer practicum was almost over; the new term would start soon. Her days were a blur of rounds and observing patient sessions. It all seemed ridiculous after what she'd been through.

The first weekend after she returned, she began to dismantle the cell. She took the furniture to a charity and burned the clothing. The bars came off the window and Hermione pried it open. Sunday, she put on a set of ratty old robes and painted the walls. When the room was all a bright sunny yellow, she wrapped herself in the grey blanket he had used and cried herself to sleep.

* * *

"Here you go, mate," Simon said, handing Cormac a pint. "And congrats on the new job. No more Ministry wage-slaving for you."

Cormac grinned. "Thanks to a glowing recommendation from the recently appointed Assistant Head of Broom Control, Simon Church. So congrats yourself."

"Ta. It would have been you, if you hadn't taken that leave right before the post came up."

Cormac shrugged dismissively. He'd been furious when he learned about the "personal leave" that Hermione had arranged for him. No one had even known he was missing – they'd believed he was in Helsinki, training with some secretive master broom-maker.

"Of course," Simon continued, "you'll probably be happier at Cleansweep. Paperwork's not your thing."

"I think I'm better where I am," Cormac agreed. He had been furious that he'd been passed over for promotion, but then the broom developer position had opened up and he'd jumped at the chance.

"Hell, yeah!" Simon nodded. "Fewer Aurors to brawl with."

"Shut it," Cormac said, rolling his eyes. Simon was teasing, but he wasn't wrong. Cormac had found that a lot of people at the Ministry were nervous around him. Si was one of his few remaining friends, after the breakdowns and all.

"Whatevs," was his friend's response. "So, are you on the pull tonight, or are you going to be my celibate sidekick and let me have a go?"

Cormac glanced around the pub. It was a busy Thursday evening, lots of witches out for a drink. Dark brown curls caught his eye and he felt his throat close. The girl turned her head and he could breathe again. This was getting ridiculous. Everywhere he went he was both dreading and hoping to see her. It wasn't right.

"Celibate it is," Simon said, clapping a hand on Cormac's shoulder. "More ladies for me."

Cormac laughed along with his friend. Simon leaned back and began a rant about some paperwork nightmare at the Ministry. Cormac sat back and sipped his beer. He knew from experience that he wouldn't need to speak for at least half an hour. As Si wittered on, Cormac's mind wandered to the dream that had woken him that morning.

He had been having vivid dreams ever since his return to the real world. At first, it had been memories resurfacing: his life since the war flowing back into his head. But the past few weeks, he had been dreaming of his time in the cell. The dreams hadn't been memories, though. Hermione was there and he would rage at her, yell and curse and scream until he broke down. Then she would come to him, wrap her arms around him and hold him close. That's how he knew it was a dream. Hermione would never touch him like that.

He hated the dreams. The emotions that they brought back were too painful: how comfortable he was around her, how much he trusted her, how he was starting to care for her. Each morning he would wake up missing her and he went through each day trying to push away how he felt about Hermione. It made him feel so pathetic, hating her and wanting her at the same time.

* * *

Hermione set her cup of tea on the end table. She picked up her book and sank onto the couch with a sigh. Today, even _Wuthering Heights_ wasn't cheering her up. She was in a bad way. In the four months since Cormac had left, Hermione had found herself missing him desperately.

At first she had tried to deny her feelings, explain them away as a healer getting too close to a patient. She threw herself into her training to distract herself from how much she missed having someone to come home to, someone who needed her to take care of him. It didn't work. She found herself dreaming about their time in the basement, about the times they sat on the bed and talked. In her dreams, though, Cormac would sit close to her, and when he reached out to touch her, she didn't pull back.

When Ron came by the hospital to take her to lunch, he teased her about acting lovesick. She couldn't deny it. She had come to care about Cormac deeply. He was the first person she had allowed to be physically close to her in years. She had believed that she could trust him to always respect her boundaries. Hermione missed the way she had felt comfortable around him, right up to their last interaction.

This sunny Saturday, she was feeling particularly morose. It had been a hard week at St Mungo's, and then Friday had been dinner at the Weasley's. She'd spent three hours dodging Molly's well-meaning questions, then gone home and dreamt of Cormac all night. Her only hope was that Heathcliff and Catherine's doomed romance would take her mind off her own hopeless infatuation. She turned to chapter twenty-nine.

A knock on the door startled her from her reading. She pried herself off the couch and made her way to the front hall. She peered through the peephole and froze in shock. Cormac was standing on her front step.

He knocked again, three solid raps, and she jumped. Smoothing a hand over her hair, she silently cursed the sloppy tunic and leggings she'd chosen to wear that morning. She pulled the door open to see Cormac starting to turn away.

"Hello," she said. Cormac spun on his heel.

"Hermione," he said. "Uh, hello."

"Hello," she answered automatically, and then felt like an idiot. "I mean, how are… won't you come in?"

"Thank you," he said, ducking his head. He hesitated and she stepped back from the door.

"The kettle just boiled. I've got a pot of tea on." She gestured towards the kitchen. Cormac stepped past her and she closed the door. For a moment, she stood, her hand still on the knob, trying to regain her composure. Once she was sure she wasn't going to burst into tears or throw herself at him, she followed him into the kitchen.

Cormac was sitting at the table, his back to the basement door. She invented and discarded a dozen conversations in her head as she poured tea and put biscuits on a plate. Finally, she sank into the chair across from him and met his eyes.

"Hermione," he said hesitantly. "How are you?"

She could have laughed, but it hurt too much. "I'm well, Cormac," she lied. "I'm busy with my training… and uh…" She took a deep breath. "How are you?"

"I'm getting better," he said, looking her full in the face. "And I realize now that part of that is because of…" He gestured towards the basement stairs. "… what you did to me. Took me a long time to admit it. And now I needed to come by and let you know that I'm not angry with you anymore."

Hermione slumped in her chair, shock and relief warring inside of her. Cormac's face changed from earnest openness to confused concern.

"Hermione, I thought you'd be happy," he said. "I'm not going to tell anyone what happened, ever. What you did, it wasn't right, but it seems to have helped me. I have a new job," he said proudly, "and I've fixed things with people. Apparently my friends like me better when I'm not randomly accusing them of being Death Eaters."

He chuckled and Hermione's heart clenched. It hurt to have him sitting there, looking healthy and happy and like he no longer needed her.

"I'm glad I could help," she said faintly. "But I'm sorry for what I did. It was entirely unethical and awful and I'm so, so sorry." 

* * *

Cormac couldn't think of a word to say. He was sitting across from Hermione, his mind a snakes' nest of painful and confusing feelings, and all he could do was stare at her. He wished he could reach out and touch her. She looked as lost as he felt.

Hermione stood up and tidied away the tea things. She was saying some nonsense about how his recovery was going well and if he ever needed to talk, she knew some great mental healers and there was a great support group for War survivors starting at the hospital. He watched without listening; he could tell that her cheer was false. He knew what Hermione looked like when she was happy, and this wasn't it.

Cormac was content to sit and watch her move around the kitchen, but before he knew it, she was leading him through the living room to the front hall. As they crossed the room, he noticed the evening sun spilling over the settee and in the patch of light, a familiar grey blanket. He felt a strange tightness in his chest. It was the blanket from his cell. And it was draped across the back of the settee, as if she'd been sleeping under it.

Before he could stop himself, he snatched up the blanket. "You kept this? What, some sick keepsake?"

Hermione blushed and ducked his gaze, but didn't reply. He could feel anger bubbling up. All these months, she had this blanket while he had nothing but his memories.

"Why the hell do you still have this? So you can remember your great feat of mental healing? Is that all that I was to you, a patient with a particularly interesting disorder?" he shouted. Cormac stepped right up close to her, waving the blanket, but for once, Hermione didn't back down from his physical closeness.

"No," Hermione protested, finally looking him in the face. "Well, maybe at the beginning, a little, but no. I keep that because it's all that's left."

He stared at her in confusion.

"What does that mean?"

"Just," she looked down at the blanket. "I can't explain. I'm sorry. It's ridiculous."

"More ridiculous than locking a man in your cellar for a month and fucking with his head?"

Hermione stepped back, her face suddenly pale. "That's not what I meant to do, and you know it. I was trying to help you. You know that."

"Your version of helping is pretty screwed up, my dear," Cormac said as he twisted the blanket in his hands.

"I know, and I'm so, so sorry. I really did think I was doing the best thing for you." Her face hardened slightly. "And you just said that what I did helped you." She reached out as though to take the blanket, but he pulled it out of her reach.

"And this, is this a trophy of a job well done?" He knew he was being irrational, but something about the sight of the blanket had set him off. "I'm surprised you don't hang it on your wall like a tapestry, rather than using it on the sofa." His voice faltered. "On the sofa. Do you _sleep_ with it?" he asked.

Hermione opened her mouth but then closed it and simply nodded.

"Why?" Cormac's voice sounded rough in his ears.

She reached for the blanket again, and this time he let her catch hold of one corner. She stood for a moment, rubbing the grey wool through her fingers, before answering.

"I miss you." Her voice was so quiet he barely heard it.

"What?" He couldn't keep the shock out of his voice.

"I miss you," she said more firmly. "Maybe _I_ need a mental healer now, but I do. And so sometimes I sleep with the blanket. I'd like it back now."

She tugged at the fabric, but Cormac tightened his hold.

"I missed you, too," he admitted. Hermione's eyes were wide with shock as she met his gaze. "We probably both need time in the mental ward at St. Mungo's. But I feel lost sometimes, because you're not around."

Her smile was small, but it made his breath catch. "I pace around the house at night and force myself not to go downstairs. I don't know what to do without you here."

He returned her smile and took a small step towards her. When she didn't flinch back, he took another. They were so close that his knuckles brushed against the back of her hands. Letting go of the blanket, he slid his fingers over hers and pried them free. Hermione never took her eyes from his. Cormac's smile widened as she twisted her fingers through his.

"This is crazy," Hermione said. "I locked you in my _basement_. You should hate me."

He laughed. "I _was_ crazy," he said. "That's why you locked me in your basement. But I don't hate you. I don't know what exactly I feel, but I know that I miss you and I want to be with you somehow."

"I want…" Hermione paused for a moment and took a deep breath. "I want to be with you too," she said firmly. "But it could be complicated."

"We've done complicated," Cormac pointed out. "I know that you'll figure out a way to make it all work out. I'll do whatever you need me to do."

The blazing smile she wore gave him the courage to let go of her fingers and move his hands to her face. As he slid his fingers along her jaw, he heard her breath catch. He froze, but she kept smiling and tilted her head up to him. He moved one hand into her short curls and used the other to guide her mouth to his.

When his lips met Hermione's, he could feel her neck tense and then relax into his embrace. As he teased her with nipping kisses, her hands slid up his chest to wrap around his shoulders, pulling him closer. He smiled against her mouth. Maybe he _was_ crazy, but as long as he had Hermione to help him, he was going to be just fine.


End file.
